
















































































Class P Z-l 


Rook , Y\/ (diA 

GoKTight N°. W;t 


COFfHIGHT DEPOSIT. 













WINONA’S DREAMS 
COME TRUE 


BY MARGARET W1DDEMER 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

ILLUSTRATED 

WINONA ON HER OWN 

1 ILLUSTRATION IN COLOR, S IN HALFTONE 

WINONA’S WAY 

A Story of Reconstruction 
FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR, AND 3 OTHER 
ILLUSTRATIONS 

WINONA’S WAR FARM 

ILLUSTRATED BY HARRIET R. RICHARDS 

WINONA OF CAMP KARONYA 

ILLUSTRATED BY HARRIET R. RICHARDS 

WINONA OF THE CAMP FIRE 

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES E. MEISTER 

THE ROSE-GARDEN HUSBAND 

ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER BIGGS 


J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA 












WINONA WAS FASCINATED BY A PAIR OF JADE-GREEN SLIPPERS EMBROIDERED 

WITH PTNK ROSES AND WISTERIA 


Page 32 













WINONA’S DREAMS 
COME TRUE 


BY 

MARGARET WIDDEMER 

) 3 

AUTHOR OF THE “ ROSE-GARDEN HUSBAND," 

'*WINONA OF THE CAMP FIRE," “WINONA’S WAY,” ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
E. CORINNE PAULI 



PHILADELPHIA & LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1923 



COPYRIGHT 1923. BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 


PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS 
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. 


DEC 19 *23 

©C1A7C0408 

■Hi , ) v 


to 

H 

) 

& 


TO 

MABEL CLELAND 

WHOSE COLLABORATION HAS MADE 
THIS BOOK WHATEVER IT IS 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 


Winona was fascinated by a pair of jade-green slippers 
embroidered with pink roses and wisteria. 

Florence was walking along, deeply engrossed in the con¬ 
versation of the red-haired, happy-hearted Andrew 

“I know how you feel,” Billy said. “You are waiting 
for your dreams to come true”. 

Winona threw her bouquet as far as she could. 


Frontispiece 

111 


247 

340 






WINONA’S DREAMS 
COME TRUE 


CHAPTER ONE 

Winona Merriam, her cheeks flushed and 
her hair slightly rumpled, was sitting on the 
floor before the fire, in the living room of the 
Little Crooked House, holding a corn-popper 
over the bed of ashes. 

“ One of the things I shall always regret,” 
said Winona’s friend, Louise Lane, leaning 
idly back in her chair with her arms clasped in 
back of her head, and watching the corn-popper 
with deep interest, “ is that we didn’t all go 
down to Billy Lee’s for Christmas.” 

“ It was a disappointment,” said Winona, 
looking over her shoulder at Louise, but con¬ 
tinuing to shake the popper vigorously. 

“ Perhaps he’ll never invite us again,” went 
on Louise. “ And I’ve always wanted to have 
that Lady of the Manor feeling that you must 
have, when the negroes jump out from behind 
trees and things at you crying ‘ Christmas 
present, Missy!’ and you deal them out tea and 
tobacco, according to their sex. Now, perhaps, 
I’ll never be able to do it,” and she sighed ex- 

7 


8 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


aggeratedly. “Winnie!” on the breath that 
was the end of her sigh, “ You’re letting 
it bum!” 

Winona rescued the burning corn, while 
Tom, her brother, who was sitting in a big 
chair, pushed just the proper distance from the 
fire to keep him comfortably warm, said: 

“ Winnie was probably thinking, as I was, 
that the negroes would appreciate a package 
of tea and a pound of tobacco about as much 
as an Eskimo would appreciate an Eskimo pie. 
If you didn’t give the women and girls each a 
dress and the men and boys a silver cigarette 
case, they’d have no more use for you, and 
you’d probably have to cook your own 
Christmas dinner.” 

“I wasn’t thinking that at all!” said 
Winona indignantly, “ Tom is getting to be 
terribly cynical. If I didn’t know that it was 
only a pose of his since he became a newspaper 
reporter, and that he thinks he has to act like 
a disillusioned old man of eighty, I’d worry 
about him. But father says to leave him 
alone, and he’ll get over it.” 

Tom frowned across at her, but he looked 
so funny, with his naturally good-natured face 
wrinkled up, that the girls couldn’t help 
laughing, and finally Louise pursuaded him to 
look at himself in the mirror which hung be- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


9 


tween the windows, and in which he could see 
himself quite plainly, without getting out of his 
chair. He looked at himself for several minutes 
as though in admiration of the scowling young 
face that looked back at him, then he laughed 
too, and peace was restored. 

Winona, by this time, had buttered and 
salted the popped com, and had put it in a 
large glass claret-bowl, on a table convenient 
to them all, and had gone over to the sofa, 
where she sat with her feet curled up under her 
in her favorite attitude. 

Nobody spoke for a time, then Louise broke 
the silence by saying, 

“ I wonder what time Charles and Helen 
will be home?” 

Winona looked at her wrist-watch and 
jumped up. 

“ They ought to be here any minute,” she 
said, “ Let’s light all the lights in the house, 
and Tom, do put some more wood on the fire 
so that it will look nice and cheerful when they 
arrive. Anything that is as depressing as a 
dark cold house to come home to, I don’t know.” 

“ It always makes you think how nice and 
warm and gay, the place was that you’ve just 
left,” Louise said, getting up and following 
Winona, “ especially if it’s your childhood 
home that you’re leaving behind.” 


10 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Helen and Charles Grace were a young 
married couple, who lived with Winona and 
Tom Merriam and Louise Lane in the Little 
Crooked House. Helen, who had been Helen 
Bryan, before she had married, had been one of 
the charmed circle of the Camp Fire girls, and 
her step-mother had been the leader of Camp 
Karonya. They had been home for the 
Christmas holidays and their return, with the 
news of the little home town, had been looked 
forward to all day, by the girls and Tom. 

Tom heaped the fire with wood and the girls 
went through the house turning on all 
the lights. 

Helen and Charles, coming along the dark 
street five minutes later, saw the Little Crooked 
House brightly lighted from top to toe, with 
paths of light leading invitingly to every door 
and window. They smiled as they saw it, 
standing so warmly welcoming them, and to¬ 
gether, hand in hand, they ran up the little path 
and knocked at the door. 

Winona was the first to reach it and she 
flung it open with a cry of welcome. Then they 
were bustled in, and taken out of their wraps 
and given the best seats in honor of the occa¬ 
sion, and for the next ten or fifteen minutes, 
they were bombarded with so many questions 
that it seemed no one was listening to what the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


11 


others were saying at all. But after a while, 
they settled down, and Charles, who was the 
eldest, and the business man of the house, and 
much respected by the others, said: 

“ Look here, we’ve got to organize this 
thing. Take turns, all of you, each one being 
allowed two questions. Louise, you start.” 

“ Everything’s gone completely from me,” 
she said, looking around at the others, who were 
eagerly waiting. 44 1 think it’s the hungry look 
in Tom’s eyes, that is making me nervous. He 
looks ready to pounce on me, if I don’t hurry 
up. How are father and the children and the 
store,” she hastily added. 

44 Fine,” said Charles and Helen together. 
44 They all sent their love to you, and said they’d 
never forgive you for not coming home for 
Christmas.” 

44 Thanks,” said Louise dryly 44 that’s 
cheering.” 

44 Now, Winona,” said Helen, smiling at 
Winnie, as she spoke. 

44 How is Mother?” asked Winona. 

44 As sweet as ever,” Helen said heartily, 
44 she sent her love to you and said to tell Tom 
.. . . , but that’s the answer to one of Tom’s 
questions, when it’s his turn.” 

44 And Father and Florence?” 


n WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

“ Your father is very well,” Charles 
answered for Helen, who seemed to hesitate. 

“ And Florence?” repeated Winona. 

“ Florence isn’t.” Helen said, with a slight 
puckering of her pretty brows. 

Winona sat up anxiously and Tom leaned 
forward in his chair and said: 

“ What’s the matter with the child? Why 
didn’t mother write?” 

“ Oh, I don’t mean she’s ill,” explained 
Helen. “ I’m sorry I frightened you. You 
see it’s this way. She’s in with a crowd of 
girls who think they’re terribly smart. They 
have their hair curled all over their heads like 
Zulus and they wear dresses to High School 
that have made the Principal rise up in 
righteous wrath, and they wear long ear-rings 
and they smoke. They acted so badly at the 
last Junior dance that the chaperons called the 
dance off and sent them all home in disgrace.” 

“ Only they didn’t think they were in dis¬ 
grace,” Charles took up the tale, “ They 
thought they had been quite smart, and the next 
week they hired a hall down-town in the 
Dwright building, and they ran their own 
dance, without a chaperon in sight. And they 
got away with it, too, for what can be done with 
them? They’re too old to spank and be put 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 13 


to bed, and punishment of any sort goes off 
them like water off a duck’s back.” 

“ Well, I’ll be darned,” said Tom, “ But,” 
he added, “I’d like to have her alone for about 
five minutes. I’d soon find a way to get her 
out of her foolishness.” 

“I think it’s perfectly terrible!” cried 
Winona, looking very much distressed. “If 
Florence is worrying Mother, I think it is time 
we did something.” 

“ That’s just it,” said Louise, “ But what 
can we do?” 

“We’ll think of something,” said Winona 
determinedly. And with that, the subject was 
dismissed and the talk went on to other news 
of home. 

Sometime later, when Louise and Winona 
were on their way upstairs to bed, Winona said. 

“ I have an idea about Florence.” 

“ I knew you’d think of something,” Louise 
said admiringly. “ What is your plan?” 

“ If no one minds, I’m going to ask mother 
if Florence can come and visit us during the 
Easter vacation. In the meanwhile we’ll think 
up something to do to cure her of her ways.” 

“ Of course no one will mind,” Louise said 
heartily. “ But Easter is a long way off.” 

“ Only about two months, it comes early 


14 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

this year,” Winona answered, “ Besides she 
couldn’t very well leave school.” 

And so it was left that way. Winona 
wrote her mother a long letter and received a 
longer one in reply. It was arranged that 
Florence should spend Easter week with the 
girls and Tom and the occupants of the Little 
Crooked House settled back into the regular 
routine of living. 

It was about a week later that Tom called 
Winona up at the Garnett Neighborhood 
House. 

“ It’s Louise’s night off, isn’t it?” he asked. 

Winona and Louise were both working at 
the Garnett Neighborhood House. Winona 
did a little bit of everything, from taking care 
of hastily left babies of mothers who had to go 
“ up-town ” to being the regular librarian of a 
children’s branch of the Public Library’s Ex¬ 
tension Division. Louise was playground 
worker and Camp Fire leader, with irregular 
and long hours which sometimes kept her in 
the evenings. 

It happened to be one of the nights that she 
had free, so Winona told Tom. 

“ Would you like to meet me at the Eighth 
Street elevated station at five-thirty?” he asked 
provokingly, knowing that the girls dearly 
loved anything out of the ordinary, and that 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 15 


with the proper amount of mystery in his 
voice, he would keep them guessing as to what 
was going to happen, until they met him. 

“You know we’d love it!” cried Winona 
enthusiastically. “ Where are we going?” 

But Tom wouldn’t tell her. He only said 
to be there on time and hastily rang off. 

She went in search of Louise to tell her 
about it and found her on the playground, 
swinging a gaudily dressed little girl. As 
Winona came toward her, she said: 

“ I wish there was some way of telling 
whether Calliope likes being swung or whether 
she is frightened to death. I’ve forgotten all 
the Greek I ever knew so I can’t ask her. If 
I stop, she’ll scream as loudly as she’s scream¬ 
ing now, so until you tell me the news I see 
gleaming in your eye, I’ll keep her swinging 
and then we can cut and run, and she won’t be 
able to catch us.” 

Winnie laughed, and delivered Tom’s 
message. 

“ I wonder where he’s going to take us?” 
Louise said, and she began to slacken Calliope’s 
flight through the air. “ What time is it? If 
it’s after five we’d better start.” 

Winona looked at her watch and found it 
to be exactly five, so Louise said: 


16 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ Then run along and I’ll close the play¬ 
ground door and be along in a minute.” 

Winona, looking back over her shoulder, 
as she reached the door leading into the house, 
saw the devoted but disgusted family of 
Calliope, carrying her off the playground. It 
was hard to tell whether Calliope was glad to 
be on her way home or sorry to have to leave 
the playground, for she was still screaming, as 
loud as ever. 

At five thirty, when Tom met the girls on 
the elevated platform, he said: 

“ I got in touch with Charles, and he, in 
some mysterious way only known to husbands 
and lovers got in touch with Helen, and they 
are going to meet us here too.” 

The girls were glad, for they had rather 
worried about not being able to let Helen 
know that they would not be home for dinner. 
Although they each did their part of the house¬ 
work in the Little Crooked House, they always 
tried to see that no one was ever inconvenienced 
or kept waiting, if they decided to stay out 
for a meal. They tried always to be able 
to tell the one whose turn it was to prepare the 
dinner, beforehand. 

When Winona and Louise had decided the 
winter before, to find positions in New York 
and take an apartment with Tom, they found 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


17 


Helen and Charles glad to go in with them. 
They had not been able to find a suitable apart¬ 
ment, but just when they were getting 
thoroughly discouraged, and ready to give up 
the search, they had come across the Little 
Crooked House, and then and there decided 
that it was the one place in New York that 
they wanted. 

So they moved in and fixed and planned and 
shifted the rooms, and now it was their home, 
with the stamp of each of them to be found in it. 
There was a quaint air of a patchwork quilt to 
its interior, where the period room of Helen’s 
and Charles’ looked superiorly across the hall 
at the gayly colored chintz hung room of 
Winona’s and Louise’s which in turn, looked 
upon the aloof mannishness of Tom’s room, 
with a you’ll-come-to-me-some-day air. 

The living room had the same pleasant 
patch work effect as the rest of the house. 
Men’s pipes and boxes of cigarettes were on the 
same table with work boxes and vases of 
flowers, and a comfortable seat which Tom had 
made out of an old top of an automobile and 
fastened to the back of an upright piano, which 
was turned with its back to the room, was con¬ 
sidered a particular work of art and only to be 
equaled by the famous davenport which be¬ 
longed to Helen and Charles and which stood 


18 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


before the fireplace. And so they lived 
“ all together in the Little Crooked House ” 
in peace and harmony and cheapness, as 
Louise said. 

Helen and Charles soon came along and as 
they walked down the stairs to the street, Tom 
whispered to Louise. 

“I’m taking you all on a Greenwich 
Village party.” 

“ Really?” whispered Louise, her eyes 
dancing, “ Oh, I know we’re going to love it. 
We’ve never been down here before.” 

The twisted, sometimes pretty streets of 
Greenwich Village wound invitingly here and 
there, in the late twilight. Hand-painted 
signs bearing the names, colored lanterns, 
pups, and cats, hung over doorways, which 
looked dark and mysterious from without but 
through which glimpses could be seen of 
roughly hewn tables and chairs, and the con¬ 
ventional Greenwich Village idea of lighting, 
candles and orange silk covered electric lights. 

Helen and Charles walked ahead, arm in 
arm, for they were still “ terrible lovers ” as 
Louise said. Tom followed with the two girls. 
They walked through Eighth Street and across 
Washington Square. Although it was early 
in the season for them, the busses were filled 
inside and out. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 19 


“ They look like comfortable Noah’s Arks 
on wheels,” Helen laughingly said, over her 
shoulder. And so they did, with everyone 
sitting two by two. 

After walking several more blocks, they 
came to an alley, and went down a short flight 
of steps to a basement restaurant. 

It was so lighted, that coming into it from 
the street, their eyes were unable to distinguish 
clearly the occupants of the tables, and there¬ 
fore they stood in a hesitating group for several 
minutes in the doorway, that is, all but Tom, 
who seemed to know his way perfectly. He 
went forward and was greeted by a pretty 
girl with black bobbed hair, who pointed to a 
table in the corner. Tom came back for the 
others, whose eyes now being accustomed to 
the dim light, followed him. 

There was no cloth on the deal table. Along 
one side of the wall a long bench had been 
built and Helen and Charles dropped down on 
this, three high back chairs held the others. 

Tom ordered, what seemed to them, a most 
surprising dinner, for a dollar. While they 
were waiting for the soup plates to be changed 
for beautifully smelling piping hot fried 
chicken, Winona took the opportunity to look 
around. By this time every other table was 
filled. And each of them seemed to have, 


20 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


almost as though it were a stage setting, and 
they had been picked out as types that were 
exactly alike, a boy and a bobbed haired girl. 
Some of them were smoking, some sitting hold¬ 
ing each other’s hands, in plain sight of all, and 
one girl, having had a quarrel with the boy she 
was with, was frankly crying. 

Louise, looking around too, gave her 
bobbed hair a toss. 

“ This is the first time I’ve ever felt that I 
fitted into a picture,” she said, “ I’m sure 
Winnie and I look as dashing as anyone here, 
and you ought to be proud to have us, Tom, 
for you’re the only male present with more 
than one girl. Here, you have the three 
prettiest girls in the room at your table. 
Look!” she broke off excitedly to say. 

“ What?” demanded Winona. 

“ Look over by the door.” said Louise. 

Winona looked, and saw a tall lad standing 
in the doorway trying to accustom his eyes to 
the smokiness of the room. She gave a cry 
of welcome. 

“ Oh, Roger!” she called aloud. 

At the same time the tall boy recognized 
them and came swiftly forward. It was 
Winona’s hand that he took first, and it was to 
Winona’s side that he pulled a chair, after he 
had spoken to the others, and been gleefully 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 21 


pulled this way and that by all of them but 
Tom, who sat back with a complacent grin on 
his face. 

After they had settled down again, and the 
first questions as to how long he would be in 
America, and how had he been so clever as to 
find them in the Green Parrot, of all the 
restaurants in New York, and how his 
mother and sister were, had been satis¬ 
factorily answered, Louise caught a glimpse 
of Tom’s face. 

“ Look at Tom,” she cried. “ He’s eaten 
millions of canaries. Come, tell us, were you 
the clever person who got up this lovely 
surprise?” 

“He was,” said Roger, “He was the one 
who made it possible for me to see you all so 
soon, because when I called him up this after¬ 
noon, and we talked it over, he asked me to 
have dinner with you all at the Little Crooked 
House, but the trip was so long, that I would 
have wasted a good hour of your society, as I 
knew I had to see some people on business, so 
he agreed to bring you down here for dinner 
and let me run in and meet you.” 

He looked at them all in turn, as he ex¬ 
plained, but he managed to add to Winona in 
an undertone: 

“ Are you glad to see me? It seemed to 


22- WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


me that I thought the old boat would never 
dock, this afternoon, and I wanted to call you 
up at once at the Garnett House. But then, I 
thought I’d surprise you more by just walking 
in on you all this way.” 

“Of course I’m glad to see you!” said 
Winona. “ I didn’t realize I liked surprises, 
but now I’ve seen you, I know I do—this kind 
anyhow. You really are one of the most con¬ 
siderate young persons I’ve ever met.” 

She looked up at him half teasingly, half 
affectionately. 

“ Do you mean that?” he asked a few 
minutes later. The others had interrupted 
their tete-a-tete for the time being, but when 
there was another chance to speak to Winona, 
he did so, in the same low voice, picking up 
the thread of their conversation where they had 
dropped it. 

“ Mean what?” asked Winona, forgetting 
for the time, just what he was referring to. 

“ That I am one of the most considerate 
men you know,” he answered. 

Winona laughed. 

“ Perhaps I think you’re a copy-cat,” she 
said teasingly. 

Roger flushed and looked hurt. 

“ What do you mean?” he demanded. 

“ Why, as we sit here, all of us together, it 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 23 


is exactly like the time we were looking for 
apartments, and after we did find the Little 
Crooked House, we all went to dinner at an 
Italian restaurant and there sitting at a table, 
looking as pleased as punch, was Billy Lee! 
None of us knew he was in town except 
Charles. I remember telling you about it and 
you probably thought it was so clever of Billy 
and Charles, that you and Tom would try it.” 

Roger looked angry for a minute or so, 
then he said with his nice honest smile, that 
instantly changed him from a cross but good 
looking man into a mischievous schoolboy: 

“ Forgive me Winona, if I haven’t staged 
a surprise party. I meant well, and at least 
this isn’t an Italian restaurant and we’ll do 
anything you want to do after dinner.” 

Winona impulsively leaned forward and 
patted his arm. 

“ I’m sorry I teased,” she said contritely. 

Louise heard her and of course wanted to 
know what she had been teasing Roger about, 
and Winona, with an apologetic little smile at 
Roger, told her. Recalling the Italian 
restaurant party, opened up a flood of “ do 
you remembers? ” and for a time the conversa¬ 
tion was general. 

After a little while Roger again leaned 


24 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


close to Winona and spoke in the same rather 
tense low voice: 

“ Am I forgiven and do you still like me?” 

“ What ever is the matter with you Roger ?” 
asked Winona, rather impatiently for her. 
“You know I was only teasing you, and I 
said I was sorry. Goodness knows I used to 
tease you enough in the old days to have you 
pretty well used to it by now.” 

“ But that was different,” Roger went on. 
“ Then it didn’t matter so much, but now I 
want you to like me, oh, so very much.” 

Winona looked at him, half puzzled. She 
wasn’t quite sure whether he was teasing her 
or not, to pay her back. But there was a look 
in Roger’s eyes that she had seen once or twice 
before and had never quite been able to find the 
reason for it. 

“ I’ll think you’re one of the most tragic 
boys I’ve ever known, if you don’t stop looking 
at me in that funny melancholy way,” she said, 
rather nervously. 

“I’ll tell you sometime why I have it,” he 
replied, and then he turned to Helen who was 
sitting on the other side of him, and it seemed 
to Winona that he talked very gaily, making 
the girls and Tom laugh over the story he 
was telling. 

Winona left to her own thought, wondered 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 25 

about the change in Roger. He had always 
been a rather quiet, tense, masterful boy, ever 
since she had known him. That was for seven 
years. It was seven years since she and Louise 
and Billy Lee had found Roger lying in the 
woods, near their home, unconscious. They 
had administered first aid and brought him 
round. During the war he had served as an 
airman. Most of his time was spent in 
England where he lived with his mother and 
sisters, with only these occasional trips, to New 
York. He was Sir Roger Mendon in England, 
Sir Roger Mendon of Mendon Hall, but to 
the boys and girls who had saved his life, he 
was a jolly companion and genuine friend. 

Roger, keeping up his reputation of con¬ 
siderateness, started his dinner with the chicken 
course, so as not to keep them waiting. It was 
a truly fine dinner to the young people who 
had to be so careful as to what they spent. 
There was macaroni and salad and finally 
Spumoni ice-cream for dessert, and heavy 
sweet Turkish coffee served in wee cups and 
flavored with orange-flower water. 

It was exactly eight o’clock by the old clock 
on the Judson Memorial Church, as they came 
across the square. Under the Washington 
Arch they walked in a group, much to the dis¬ 
gust of several taxi drivers who told them to 


26 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


get on the sidewalk. To them all it was one of 
those evenings when life seems so gay and 
happy and worth living, that nothing un¬ 
pleasant can pierce the rosy enveloping haze. 
As they stood on the corner of Eighth Street 
and Fifth Avenue, the lights from the hotel on 
the corner lit up their gay young faces. Older 
people passing in taxis and busses and motor 
cars, smiled to themselves at the young happi¬ 
ness of the group. 

Roger had made reservations at the hotel 
where he and his mother always stayed, and he 
had left his bag there. But Tom insisted that 
he stay at least the first night, with them in the 
Little Crooked House. 

They divided into pairs to walk up the 
Avenue, and Tom and Louise soon out-dis¬ 
tanced the others, for they both liked to walk 
swiftly. Roger and Winona, on the other hand 
sauntered along, and after walking a block or 
two in silence, Winona looked up at Roger and 
said with a smile: 

“ Well, tell me about her.” 

“ About whom?” he asked, looking down at 
her with the melancholy light again in his eyes. 

“ The girl you’re in love with,” she 
answered. “You always used to tell me every¬ 
thing, hurry up and begin! Is she pretty?” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 27 


Roger looked at this new Winona, laughing 
and flirtatious. 

“I’m going to ask you a few questions 
first,” he replied. “ Will you promise to 
answer them?” 

“ Of course,” she laughed. She couldn’t 
remember anything that she couldn’t tell 
Roger. 

“ Where is Billy Lee?” was the first 
question. 

Perhaps it was the sudden mention of his 
name that made Winona blush, and then hate 
herself for doing it. 

“ Why he’s down South,” she said, de¬ 
murely. “I got a letter from him this morning.” 

“ So you still correspond?” Roger said. 

“I should hope so!” cried Winona in¬ 
dignantly. “ He’s the best friend we have—al¬ 
most.” She added the last, purely from 
kindness of heart, for it was true, Billy Lee 
was the best boy friend that she and Tom had. 

“ I see,” said Roger, frowning, and for 
several blocks they walked along in silence. 

She glanced up at him once or twice, but 
seeing that he still wore a preoccupied and 
somewhat injured look, she decided not to 
speak to him again, until spoken to, and pro¬ 
ceeded to enjoy herself by herself. 

It was lovely on Fifth Avenue. The lights, 


28 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


as far as one could see, stretched like a double 
row of diamond necklaces on the black velvet 
darkness of the night. Like jewels in a giant’s 
crown, the red and amber and green traffic 
signal lights, shone high up, in their grey 
steel towers. 

As they crossed the next street, they came 
upon the others who had stopped and were 
waiting for them. 

“ Something is being put to a vote,” said 
Louise. “ Would you two like to go down 
into the depths of Chinatown with Tom and 
me, or ride sedately home on the top of the 
bus, with Charles and Helen.” 

“ Of course if you want to go to Chinatown, 
we’ll have to go along as chaperons,” Helen 
broke in to say, and everyone laughed, for it 
was a little habit Helen had, of wanting an ex¬ 
cuse for doing things she particularly wanted 
to do herself. Having layed the responsibility 
on other shoulders, she always proceeded to en¬ 
joy herself. 

“ That settles it,” said Louise, “ We go to 
Chinatown, and not on one of those bumping 
sight-seeing busses either. Tom has promised 
to lead us to the deepest dives and introduce 
us to all its worst characters.” 

“ Why Tom, where did you ever meet them 
all?” asked Helen, opening her eyes like a 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 29 


surprised kitten. She often took Louise’s 
jokes literally but whether she did it purposely 
or not, no one ever could tell. 

“ Oh, he’s a deep-dyed, double-back action 
villain a yard wide!” Winona said light- 
heartedly. “ Aren’t you Tommy?” 

Tom only shook his head, and told her in a 
stern brotherly way not to be silly, and turned 
the little party eastward on a cross town street. 


CHAPTER TWO 


Little crooked winding brown streets. 
Stores on either side, with windows filled with 
Chinese gods, looking very much at home for 
all that they were under Western skies; incense 
burners, in forms of temples; brown and white, 
withered looking, lily bulbs. Other windows 
holding trays of Chinese trinkets, carved ivory 
and jade; bracelets of green and yellow and 
palest pink stone; Chinese embroidery made 
into fascinating bags with jade ring handles. 
Long, long strings of carved sweet-smelling 
beads, ready to be wound around slim young 
throats; Chinese prayer books, Mandarin hats; 
gay little colored skirts and coats for Chinese 
girls; fans of peacock feathers mounted in 
ivory handles, alluringly graceful, and pretti¬ 
est and daintiest of all, Chinese slippers, tiny, 
gayly embroidered things made of silk. 

The girls and boys found each window more 
fascinating than the one before. Slim tall dark 
doorways divided them from their neighboring 
windows. Mysterious doorways that hid the 
secrets of the East behind thin panelling. 

A slinking black and white cat came out of 
the shadows of one of these doorways and 
so 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 31 


crossed the street directly before them. 
Winona impulsively put her hand on Roger’s 
arm and he took it and pressed it gently for a 
minute to reassure her. It was so much like 
old times that Winona smiled up at him in her 
friendly way, glad to forget their past conver¬ 
sation on Fifth Avenue and the small prick of 
unhappiness that she had felt at the thought of 
losing him. He had not denied her accusation 
that something had made her impulsively throw 
out, that there was a girl somewhere that he 
was in love with. 

So with her arm slipped through his they 
walked from window to window until they 
finally came to a shop, bigger and more brightly 
lighted than the others. 

Tom stopped and waited for the others to 
come up to him. 

“ This is the best store in Chinatown,” he 
said to the five of them, gathered under the 
flare of a huge electric light, which hung di¬ 
rectly over the doorway. “ The proprietor is 
a friend of mine,” he added. 

“ Let’s go in,” said Louise enthusiastically, 
and the others agreeing, Tom pushed open the 
long glass-plated door and led the way into 
the shop. 

A fat round-faced Chinaman came from 
behind the counter to greet them. He shook 


82 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


hands with Tom and bowed sedately to the 
others. With a sweeping gesture he gave them 
to understand that the shop and its contents 
was theirs, and then with another deep bow he 
went through a bead curtained doorway into 
the back room of the shop. 

When they found themselves alone they 
looked all around. On the shelves reaching to 
the ceiling, there was displayed everything 
dear to the Chinese heart and to the lovers of 
Chinese things. Behind modern glass-door 
show cases, on modern coathangers, were old 
Mandarin coats and the fascinating, gayly 
colored little Chinese suits for girls. There 
was a scent of incense in the air and the red and 
orange shaded lights created an Oriental 
atmosphere that thrilled the girls. 

Winona went directly to the show cases 
containing the slippers. She was fascinated by 
a pair of jade green ones embroidered with 
pink roses and wisteria. The flowers were out¬ 
lined with gold thread, and altogether the slip¬ 
pers were as an adorable pair as could be found 
this side of fairyland. 

Louise, after looking at the slippers for 
awhile, strolled over to the shelves where the 
gods lived and seemed completely lost in 
admiration of their ugly fat faces and repul¬ 
sive bodies. Helen and Charles, together of 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 33 


course, went to look at a wonderful old cabinet. 
The effect of the black ebony against the 
Chinese blue of an old rug which hung behind 
it on the wall, pleased them both immensely 
and the many tiny drawers and cubby-holes 
interested and held them. 

Roger and Tom stood in a comer talking 
earnestly, as they always did, picking up the 
threads after a separation. 

Roger was the first to stop and look around 
for the others. Winona, with her green 
slippers in her hand, had been trying to find a 
Chinese girl’s suit to go with them, and had 
evidently succeeded, for she held a suit of 
gold cloth, embroidered in green and pink and 
wisteria, in her hand. 

Tom raising his head at the same time 
looked over toward the shelves, before which 
Louise had been standing, looking at the 
little gods. 

“ Winona,” he said sharply, “ have you 
seen Louise? Where is she?” 

Winona turned and shook her head in 
surprise. 

“ I haven’t seen her, Tom,” she said, “ I 
was so interested in these things that I hadn’t 
noticed where any of you were.” 

“ She’s not here,” cried Tom, “ If she went 


s 


34 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


by herself on the street, I’ll never take her any¬ 
where again. She ought to know better.” 

Winona realizing that Tom was really 
worried, put down the slippers and the gold 
cloth suit and went over to him. 

“ She can’t possibly have gone very far,” 
Helen said, “ I saw her only a minute ago 
standing near that shelf,” and she pointed to 
the shelf where the idols, still smiling in fat 
stolidity, sat in long neat rows. 

Tom opened the street door, the others 
close behind him. After the brightness of the 
shop, the street seemed dark and evil looking, 
for it was later than they realized and many of 
the shops, which had been brightly lighted when 
they came along, now were dark and closed for 
the night. They noticed that the lights in the 
window of their store had been dimmed, too. 

But there was no sign of Louise anywhere. 
And then, Winona, her hearing quickened by 
fright, heard Louise’s voice. 

“ Louise!” cried Winona sharply, and to 
the others, “ She’s in there!” 

Tom was the first to push the jingling bead 
curtains apart that separated the store from 
the little back room where the Chinaman had 
retired, when they had first come into the shop. 
The others were again close behind him. 
Louise, seated at a black inlaid with gold, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 35 


marble topped table, looked up in surprise. 
She held in her hands a lovely string of beads 
that might have been made of moonlight. 

The old fat Chinaman was bending over, 
and taking from the big safe in the corner 
another tray of beads. 

Helen said, and rather indignantly: 

“ Whatever are you doing, Louise? We 
were worried to death about you.” 

Louise looked around at them, and ad¬ 
dressed Tom, who was still frowning at her. 

“ I’m sorry,” she said, “ I wanted to get 
a present for Winona. I thought she’d like 
something from here to remind her of tonight. 
Mr. San Toy came into the shop while you 
were all there—it is a wonder you didn’t see 
him—and told me he had some nicer things 
back here, so I slipped away. I thought you 
all saw me going.” 

“We didn’t, said Helen. “ It was Tom 
who frightened me nearly to death. He 
dashed around as though you’d been kid¬ 
napped, or run over, or something equally 
as bad.” 

“Oh, I am sorry! ” said Louise contritely. 
She looked across at Tom but he had moved 
away and was now in deep conversation with 
Mr. San Toy. Louise turned back to the beads. 

Everybody bought everybody else a little 


36 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


present. They took turns standing in a corner 
with their eyes shut, while the selecting went 
on. It finally got to be a regular frolic. Mr. 
San Toy seemed to enjoy it as much as anyone 
and bowed and smiled and brought out his 
prettiest things for them to see. After Tom, 
who was the last one to take his turn to go into 
the corner, had been bought the ugliest idol on 
the shelf, carefully picked out by Louise, Mr. 
San Toy served tea and Chinese nut-cakes and 
candied fruits. 

They went out into the dimly lighted 
streets. Louise suddenly left them and went 
back into the shop. She stood on tip-toe and 
softly stroked the head of a green stuffed 
Chinese baby dragon, which hung from the 
ceiling on a fine silken cord. Tom went back 
after her. The little dragon was swinging 
around and around and Tom put his hand over 
Louise’s to steady it. She looked up at him 
and smiled. 

“ Isn’t he a darling?” she said. “ He seems 
to be smiling, in greeting and farewell. And 
the expression on his baby face is just like a 
little lamb’s.” 

“ There wouldn’t be much left of a little 
lamb if this little dragon ever saw it!” 
laughed Tom. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


37 


Louise laughed too, and gave the little 
dragon a final pat. 

“I’m coming to see you again some day, 
dragon,” she said. And the little dragon 
seemed to smile more broadly, or perhaps it was 
only the dim lights and the shadows that made 
it seem that way. San watching them from 
the dim shadows, smiled. 

They ran out to join the others. 

Roger insisted upon piling them all into a 
taxi. They were terribly crowded, but happy. 
They rode to the hotel where Roger had left 
his luggage. He went in and soon returned 
with a bag, but with the added room that it 
took up, Helen for one, decided that the taxi 
was too crowded and that they had better trust 
themselves to the spaciousness of a late subway 
train. Roger directed the driver to take them 
to the nearest subway station. 

There was a letter for Winona from her 
mother, when they got home that night. 

“ Mother says Florence may come for a 
visit at Easter,” said she, looking up from it, 
and said no more. 

Later when she and Louise were alone she 
showed her the letter. Mrs. Merriam seemed 
to be worried about Florence, although she did 
not say as much. But there was an undemote 
of anxiousness that the girls could feel. 


38 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“We must do something!” Louise said, 
after she had finished reading it. 

“ I know,” said Winona,” and remember I 
told you that I had a plan. I’ll have to count 
on the others and you to help me. As soon as 
I have it more carefully worked out I’ll tell 
you the details.” 

“ I know if it’s your plan, it will be a good 
one,” Louise said affectionately. She brought 
her hair-brush over with her and perched on the 
side of Winnie’s bed while she brushed her hair 
one hundred times. 

“ I’m not sure it can be done,” Winona 
said. “ But I’m going to try. I’m not sure 
whether I’ve got it in me to carry it through.” 

“ Bemember you have the united forces of 
the clever inmates of the Little Crooked House 
behind you!” Louise said dramatically, wav¬ 
ing her hair-brush as though it were a sword 
and she were saluting with it. “ Our motto is 
to do and dare and stick together!” 

“That’s my one comfort!” Winona said, 
smiling at Louise. 

“ Do you know, I think I’ll let my hair 
grow,” Louise said a few minutes later, after 
they had put out the light and were in bed. “ I 
think long hair is coming in with a bang, and 
what will the bobbed haired girl do then, poor 
thing? Some girl who didn’t bob hers will 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 39 


start some new fashion that simply will have to 
have long hair to make it becoming.” 

“ I’ll let mine grow too,” Winona said 
sleepily. 

“But you do look like such an angel child 
with it blowing all over your head, the way it 
does,” Louise said, “ It’s so becoming to you it 
will be a shame.” 

“ Well, don’t worry, I won’t be letting it 
grow for quite a while,” Winona answered 
mysteriously. 

“ What do you mean by that, Ethel 
Barrymore?” demanded Louise. “Why the 
tragedy?” 

“ You’ll see, darling,” Winona answered 
calmly. “Now goodnight.” 

“ Goodnight,” said Louise, but added, 
“ There’s no use of ever trying to get anything 
out of you if you don’t want to tell it, and I 
suppose I’ll know soon enough.” 

“You will,” Winona said, and smiled to 
herself in the darkness. 

It was Winona’s turn to get breakfast the 
next morning. Everything was done by turn in 
the Little Crooked House, except the washing 
of the breakfast dishes and the general tidying 
up of the rooms, which Helen did, because the 
others all went down-town to business. But 
even the boys took their turn in preparing the 


40 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


breakfast, which was a simple enough meal on 
the whole, as it generally consisted of fruit, 
cereal, coffee and toast. 

But this particular morning Winona de¬ 
cided to get up earlier and make waffles, which 
she knew Roger was very fond of, and which 
he always said she made better than anyone 
else. She was singing to herself as she mixed 
the batter, and got out the waffle iron. Winona 
was standing on her tip-toes trying to reach 
the dishes for the cereal when Roger came to 
the kitchen door. He stood watching her for 
a minute thinking how pretty she was, standing 
there with her slender arms above her head and 
an inquisitive shaft of sunlight, shining on her 
brown hair, which he remembered with a smile 
had been bobbed bv mistake. 

The Little Crooked House had tall narrow 
built-in closets, and the shelves only held a 
few dishes. The best dishes, such as the glass¬ 
ware and the pretty gold and white cups and 
saucers which Helen had painted, were kept 
below. This arrangement had been considered 
the best, after one or two of the small glasses 
had been broken, because of being hidden by 
the taller ones. It didn’t matter so much if the 
commoner dishes were broken, and Winona 
was having difficulty in reaching them, for they 
were pushed back farther than usual. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 41 


44 Good morning,” Roger said finally, going 
into the kitchen and lifting down the cereal 
dishes for her. 

She stopped singing and thanked him. 

44 Please will you get the bread and butter 
plates too?” she said. 44 They are back so far 
I’d have to stand on a chair to reach them.” 

Roger obligingly got them down for her 
and helped her to lay the blue and white cloth 
and set the table. Winona put a pretty green 
plant in a dull old-rose bowl in the centre of 
the table. 

44 That centrepiece is one of the things I’ve 
learned to make or grow or whatever you want 
to call it, down at the Neighborhood House. 
Our Social Worker has her whole window box 
filled with it and it was so pretty and hardy 
that I asked her what it was. And do you 
know, it’s only grape-fruit seeds.” 

Roger admired it dutifully, but with an 
absent eye. 

44 Winnie,” he said irreverently. 44 When 
are you coming over to visit mother in 
England?” You know you’ve been promising 
for a long time.” 

44 I’d love to!” said Winona, 44 But I ex¬ 
plained to you last year how the Garnett 
Neighborhood House seemed to be the only 
place for me, and why, and I love the children 


42 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

so much—you can’t imagine how hard it would 
be to leave them!” 

“ Well, there’s nothing for mother and me 
to do but continue to hope,” Roger said smiling 
at Winona, whose face was flushed and whose 
eyes were shining from the earnestness of 
her argument. 

“ But,” he continued, “ I know you always 
keep your promises so I’m positive that some 
day you’ll come over and let me show you all 
the things I ve wanted to have you see for so 
long. There’s a secret staircase in Mendon 
Hall, you know.” 

“ No I didn’t know,” Winona said, “ I do 
try to always keep my promises and I can’t 
think of any I’d rather keep than this one. I 
want to go to England ever so much more than 
you want me to go.” 

“ I wonder!” Roger said with a little smile. 

Their conversation was broken into by Tom 
who came into the room slipping the rubber 
band from the morning paper and sniffing the 
waifle-laden air like a hungry grey-hound. 

He greeted Roger and asked Winona why 
she didn t make waffles every day for breakfast 
and by and by the others came down and ate 
so many waffles that Winona vowed she’d be 
late for business if they didn’t stop. 

Roger went down-town with them on the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 43 


subway. Before they separated they made 
plans for that evening for Roger expected only 
to be in town for a few weeks and he was 
anxious to see as many new plays as he could, 
and he liked taking the “ inmates ” of the Little 
Crooked House, as Louise called them, 
with him. 

There were many of these parties during 
Roger’s visit and many home-cooked dinners 
and pleasant evenings spent around the fire. 
Winona and Roger were constantly together, 
but although Winnie tried she never could feel 
the same perfect ease with him as she had in the 
old days. The remembrance of their con¬ 
versation in the Green Parrot and later on 
Fifth Avenue remained and she was firmly 
convinced that Roger was in love with some 
girl in England. She felt that he did not tell 
her, only because the girl had probably not 
given him permission to announce the engage¬ 
ment. Winona was not the kind of a girl to 
worry about things very much, so she enjoyed 
Roger’s society while she could, with only an 
occasional little pang of regret at the thought 
of losing even this pleasant companionship 
with him. 

On Sunday they decided to have a picnic. 
This in itself was not an original idea. They 
had gone on picnics ever since they could re- 


44 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

member. But this was to be a different kind 
of a picnic for they were to go to it in a hand¬ 
some hired car. Helen and Charles had made 
arrangements to spend the day with another 
young married couple on Long Island, so they 
of course couldn t go, but the other four started 
at nine with a picnic basket and a couple of 
thermos bottles and their bathing suits. 

“ It’s much too cold for bathing,” Helen 
said, watching their preparations with some¬ 
thing like envy. 

It probably is, said Louise, dropping 
the round black bundle which was her bathing 
suit, into the back of the car, as she spoke. 

But we might have to wear them before the 
day is over. A ou never can tell what will 
happen when you go out in a hired chariot” 

“ She ’ s a11 right,” Roger said, putting down 
the hood over the engine and walking around 
to unscrew the cap to see if there was enough 
water in the radiator. <c I went over her my¬ 
self this morning.” 

“ Why is it every man thinks he knows more 
about a car than any other man, woman or 
child in the world?” whispered Louise to 

Winona. “ They’re all alike, every last one 
of them.” 

“Well, Roger would know,” Winona 
answered laughingly. “ At least he ought to. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 45 


he’s owned a car for ages, beside knowing how 
to drive an aeroplane ought to help some.” 

“So ought garage men to know,” Louise 
said, “ But don’t you remember that terrible 
time we left father’s old car at the garage to 
be fixed, and the garage man told us that the 
horrible grating noise it was making, was only 
a sand blister or something and Tom and I took 
him at his word and went gayly off to get as 
far away from home as we could in one after¬ 
noon’s drive, and just as soon as we got as far 
as we could and return the same day, the whole 
rear end fell out, and we had to ride through 
two towns and the outskirts of a third before 
we could find a garage. I’ll never forget it I 
We made such a noise that everyone ran out 
to see us, and then they would stand in rows 
and point their fingers at that horrible rear end 
and shout that we were having trouble. Just 
as though we didn’t know we were having 
trouble, with all the rear end hanging down 
and trailing behind us like a petticoat!” she 
added indignantly. 44 And it took ten dollars 
worth of taxi-cab to get us home! ” 

“I do remember!” Winona said sympa¬ 
thetically. 44 It was a horrid thing to have 
happen. I hope nothing like that happens to¬ 
day. Come on, they’re waiting for us to 
get in.” 


46 iWINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Helen and Charles rode with them as far as 
the subway station, and they left them standing 
in the dungeon looking entrance, waving to 
them, until they were out of sight. 

Winona was sitting in front with Roger, 
who was driving, and after they got out into the 
country, she took off her hat and let the fresh 
wind blow through her short hair. 

He looked at her and smiled. 

Do you know,” he said, “ I think it must 
be your hair that changes you so much. I’ve 
been trying to discover where the change in you 
lay and I think I’ve found it now. YouVe 
been different ever since you bobbed it.” 

Have I changed? said Winona, looking 
up at him through the flying sprays of hair. It 
seemed to her that most of the change had 
come from the other side. 

Immensely! Roger said with conviction, 
“ 1 think you must have snipped off a lot of 
staidness with those curls.” 

‘And I’ve thought you’ve changed!” 
Winona continued a little later, taking up the 
thread of their conversation where they had 
dropped it. 

Perhaps I have,” said Roger, “ IVe had 
more time to settle down and think in the last 

year. But it isn’t so much a change as being 
more the same way.” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 47 


It was on the tip of Winona’s tongue to ask 
about the other girl whom she had built up out 
of her imagination, but she thought better of it 
and they rode on for a mile or so again in 
silence. It seemed safer. 

“ What does your mother think about 
Louise and me working at the Garnett 
House?” she asked, after a little while, 
irreverently. 

“ She thinks anything you do is just about 
right,” he answered. “ You know, you really 
stand very high in mother’s estimation,” he 
added, smiling a little. 

Winona said warmly, “ I think she is a 
darling! She’s always been so perfectly sweet 
to me.” 

“We’d all be perfectly sweet to you if 
you’d come over to England and visit us,” he 
said half laughingly, half teasingly. “ Perhaps 
you don’t know in what high estimation the 
whole family hold you,” he added still half 
teasingly, but with that odd note in his voice 
that Winona had noticed once or twice before. 

“ Oh, I’ll come some day!” she answered 
lightly, and then Louise called to them from 
the back, to point out a place ahead that she 
and Tom thought looked like a good place to 
rest and lunch, and they could say no more. 

Going home through the soft black wall of 


48 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

darkness, which the key of the automobile 
lights opened magically before them, Tom and 
Louise were in front. Roger and Winona sat 
close together in the rear, not talking very 
much, for the day had been a long full one, and 
they were tired, but with the nice tiredness that 
only seems to make the body pleasantly sleepy, 
but leaves the senses alert. 

Roger took Winona’s hand, after a little 
while, and held it lightly. It seemed such a 
natural, friendly thing to do in the soft per¬ 
fumed darkness, that she hardly noticed that 
he held it, any more than she would have 
Louise’s or Tom’s friendly touch. 

They had put the top of the car back, and 
she was sitting with her head resting against 
the cushions, looking up at the stars that al¬ 
ways remained the same, no matter how fast or 
how far they sped along in the car. She was 
thinking of a thousand and one things, the way 
one does in the early morning, when dreams 
seem only a step away from reality. So she 
was rather startled when Roger tightened his 

hold on her hand and said in rather a 
husky voice: 

“ Winnie, could you ever love me?” 

# was the hist thing that Winona had been 
thinking of, in her half sleepy mind, but it 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 49 


brought her to full wakefulness and made her 
sit straight and draw her hand from Roger’s. 

“ I never thought of such a thing!” she said 
truthfully, and trying to catch a glimpse of his 
face, for she thought he might be only teasing 
her, but the darkness hid it from view. 

“ Haven’t you ever?” he asked gently, 
“ I’ve thought about being able to love you, 
for a long time.” 

“ Why, there never was anything to make 
me feel that way!” she said, half doubtfully, 
for the memory of their conversation in the 
Green Parrot and on Fifth Avenue, came back 
to her, with the remembrance of what she had 
called his “ melancholy ” look. “ I’ve been so 
busy,” she added half apologetically, afraid 
that she might have sounded rude in her first 
outburst of surprise. 

“ But do you ever think you could?” he 
asked persistently. “ Or are you in love with 
someone else?” he added jealously. “ Billy 
Lee for instance!” 

She never quite knew herself just why she 
colored up and dropped her eyes at the mention 
of Billy Lee’s name. It was a trick she had 
that provoked her exceedingly, and she always 
became very angry at herself for doing it. 
This was the second time she had done so be¬ 
fore Roger, and it made her rather annoyed at 

4 


50 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

ihiirf for asking about Billy all the time. Why 
couldn t Roger be sensible? Here he was on a 
perfectly beautiful evening, after having spent 
a lovely day together, trying to find out if she 
ever could love him. Of course she loved him, 
she had known him for years and looked upon 
him as she did on Billy and Louise and Tom, 
And she knew she loved all of them very much. 
But oh, she couldn t love him in the way he 
seemed to want her to! A. way she had never 
thought of loving anyone. But after all, had 
all this come as a surprise to her, hadn’t she 
noticed a decided change in Roger ever since 
he had been in New York? And then it came 
to her, there was a girl, but it wasn’t an English 
girl as she had imagined, but herself! With the 
realization of this, she felt a pleasant little 
thrill go through her. All girls know the feel¬ 
ing when they have their first declaration of 
love; there is never anything else quite like it, 
evei after, even when the true love comes along. 
From that time on, it was a changed Winona 
who looked at Roger from a new viewpoint. 

Would it be so hard to fall in love with 
this handsome boy?” she thought to herself. 
From an old friend, he was subtly changed into 
a possible Piince Charming, and she found 
herself trying to catch glimpses of his face, as 
they sped under the electric lights which were 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 51 


now placed at regular intervals along the road. 
And she did not answer his question. 

He didn’t speak again for some time. She 
was afraid that she had hurt him, and Winona 
couldn’t bear to ever hurt anything or anybody. 
So after awhile, she leaned a little closer to him 
and slipped her hand back into his. 

“ I don’t think I’m in love with anyone, 
Roger,” she said in a low voice, “ And I’m 
afraid I’m not in love with you. But please 
can’t we just continue being friends, at least, 
for awhile? You see I’ve never thought 
seriously of love or lovers before, and it is all 
quite new to me. I haven’t a doubt you’d make 
a beautiful one,” she added generously. 

“ You’re a darling, Winnie!” Roger cried, 
but he put her hand back in her own lap, after 
giving it a little squeeze. For a minute Winnie 
felt hurt, but then she realized that he was only 
being honorable and she felt a wave of deep 
liking for him, sweep over her. 

“ Will you promise me something? ” he 
asked as they were drawing nearer to town, and 
the glow of the lights of the city could be seen 
reflected on the sky. 

“ Of course!” she assented gladly, glad to 
be able to do something he asked her. 

“ Will you promise me that you’ll visit us 
sometime in England, just the same? That 


52 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

you won’t let tonight stand in the way? I 

shall feel, if you don’t come, that it is because 
of tonight.” 

“ I’ll come,” Winona said, earnestly. “ I 
piomise, and besides we’ll probably both forget 
about tonight, anyway, in a couple of days.” 

“Do you honestly believe that I shall?” 
he asked looking gravely down at her. 

Oh, Im not sure!” Winona half laugh¬ 
ingly admitted. “ Perhaps you’ll remember it 
for three days!” she added teasingly. She was 

trying to get them back onto the friendly foot¬ 
ing of the day. 

Louise looked back over her shoulder at 
them, and called attention to something ahead 
of them, and the talk became general, until 
they reached the Little Crooked House. 

Louise noticed that Roger and Winona 
were very quiet, as the four of them proceeded 
to gh e an account of the day to Helen and 
Chailes, who had arrived home earlier. Al¬ 
though they said that they had had a wonderful 
day, they were not as gay and as enthusiastic in 
their description of it, as usual. 

It may be love or tiredness,” she thought 
t° herself, as she went out into the kitchen to 
cut bread and toast it, while Tom fried eggs 

for sandwiches for them to eat before they went 
to bed. 


CHAPTER THREE 


It was a grey Saturday that Roger took 
the boat for England. Winona and Tom and 
Louise went down to see him off. They 
crowded into a taxi, with his bags outside, and 
drove to the dock. It was their last dissipation, 
Louise said, for they considered taxis a luxury, 
only to be used on such an occasion as this one. 

The girls were delighted with the boat, 
which was the largest of its kind, and they 
arrived early enough to go aboard and look all 
around. In the shadow of one of the smoke¬ 
stacks, Roger drew Winona back, in the pre¬ 
tense of showing her something. 

“ You won’t forget your promise, Winnie?” 
he asked. 

“About England?” she said smilingly, 
“ No I won’t.” 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ I do wish you were 
going back with me now.” 

“ It would be nice,” agreed Winona, half 
shyly looking up at him. She could see how 
pleasant it would be, to be going across with 
Roger. She thought how good-looking he was, 
as he stood looking down at her, in his grey 
tweeds, and the collar of his heavy coat, up 

53 


54 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

around his neck. The melancholy look, that 
she had thought was for another girl, was in 
his grey eyes. 

“ Don’t you think you might be going back 
with me some day?” he asked, half whimsically. 
He had not mentioned love again to her, since 
the night of the picnic, and now he was not 
quite sure how she would take his lapse back 
into the lover-like mood of that night. 

Perhaps it was because it was a grey day, 
and they always made Winona wistful, perhaps 
it was because Roger was going away, and soon 
there would be thousands of miles between 
them, perhaps she didn’t want to hurt him, or 
make him unhappy, this last time she would 
see him. It might have been the combination 
of all these things, that made Winona unable to 
find either laughter or surprise in her heart, 
with which to form her answer. What she 
found there was something new, something she 
never before had known was in her heart. It 
was, a tiny vision of herself as Roger’s wife and 
the mistress of Mendon Hall. She knew she 
would be happy as his wife, she was sure of this. 
Roger was so kind, and his mother and sisters 
were sweet and lovely to her too. But, as 
though a shade had been drawn down, and 
hidden it from view, something hid the vision, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 55 


and she saw him again, only as the old friend of 
her childhood, and this vision remained. 

So it was with warm friendliness in her 
voice, that she said: 

“ Perhaps I might, some day!” and 
laughed, as she said it. 

“ You darling!” he cried, recognizing the 
warmth in her voice and putting a different 
interpretation on the look in her eyes to suit 
his wishes. He spoke so rapturously, that two 
older people passing at the time turned to look 
at them. “ Do you really mean that!” 

“ Oh, Roger, don’t hold me to anything!” 
she cried. “I’m really not promising anything, 
understand. I just mean, well—you never 
can tell—and besides, I think it would be lovely 
to be going with you to England.” 

“ I think its only the trip you’re thinking of, 
and not of having me as a companion. I think 
you’d just as soon go with Louise or Tom, or 
Billy,” he added jealously. 

But the gong sounded before Winona could 
answer him, and Louise and Tom came from 
around the huge smokestack. There was 
only time left for a few more words alone, 
while they were walking along the deck to the 
gangplank. There was still a note of jealousy 
in Roger’s voice as he said, in answer to 


56 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

something Tom had asked him concerning 
Billy Lee. 

“ Of course I’m sorry I missed Billy!” 

Winona gave a little gasp. 

“ How perfectly stupid of me!” she cried, 
“ I have a letter here for you from Billy. He 
enclosed it this morning in a letter to me, be¬ 
cause he knew that we’d be coming down to see 
you off, and he wanted you to be sure to have 
it.” She handed Boger an envelope. 

4 Thank you very much,” he said in rather 
a stiff voice, and slipped it into his over¬ 
coat pocket. 

It was so unlike the sweet-tempered Boger, 
that Louise looked at Tom in surprise, to see 
if he had noticed anything different in him. 
Winona was afraid she knew the reason for the 
stiffness, and she was glad when the warning 
gong sounded all ashore for the last time and 
they had to hurry away. As they stood on the 
dock, with Boger high above them on the deck, 
she half shyly blew him a little kiss. It was a 
thing she might have done to anyone of her 
friends, but now, when she did it, she couldn’t 
quite help wishing that she had the little kiss 
back safe where it belonged, for she saw him 
look eagerly down at her, seeming half to be 
begging for her to give him some little farewell 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 57 


token of relenting, but she couldn’t do it, and 
lie looked disappointed. 

The boat swung round and was soon 
headed down stream. They stood and waved 
to the grey clad figure, as long as they thought 
he would be able to see them. 

“ I wish there were no such things as leave 
takings,” Winona said a little while later. “ I 
always miss people so horribly.” 

“ It will be hard,” agreed Louise. “ And 
we’ll miss the riotous time we’ve been having 
with Roger lately,” she added practically. She 
looked rather sharply at Winona as she said 
this, for she had more than suspected Roger’s 
undeniable admiration for Winona. 

But Winona didn’t seem to hear her. She 
had taken a letter out of her hand-bag and was 
reading it, leaning forward to catch the last 
rays of the watery looking setting sun, which 
had come up at the last minute of the day, to 
look around before going to bed. 

The letter was from Billy Lee, and Winona 
was reading it over for the second time. She 
always liked getting letters from him, more 
than from anyone else she knew, for they 
were typical of him and told so much. 

Billy Lee was rather a shy boy, without the 
poise and easiness of manner that was Roger’s 
in such a degree. Billy was inarticulate at 


58 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


times, at others, he held people by the hidden 
force that was somewhere deep down in 
him. People liked and admired Roger, 
but they turned to Billy for sympathy 
and understanding. 

This particular letter contained an amusing 
account of some of the negroes on the plantation 
where Billy lived, and Winnie read it aloud 
to the others. Louise looked at her and smiled. 
She felt that she needn’t worry about Winona. 
No girl whose lover is taking her promise with 
him back to England could laugh as whole¬ 
heartedly as Winnie was now doing, she’d be 
missing him too much. But a little later when 
she looked again, Winona’s eyes were filled 
with tears. 

“ I shall miss Roger more than ever, this 
time,” she said childishly, “ we were together 
so much because you and Tom were always 
pairing off.” 

“ Cheer up girls,” Tom said, seeing that 
X:Ouise was beginning to look unhappy too, 
and thinking it was time he broke up 
the gloom that was beginning to envelope them. 

“ Florence will soon be here and then for 
Winnie’s wild plan!” 

Winona had told them all about what she 
intended doing when Florence was visiting 
them, and they had agreed to help her, although 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 59 


they thought as Tom did, that it was a 
wild plan. 

So the trip across town in the brown and 
white taxi and uptown in the subway was 
spent pleasantly enough making plans for the 
coming visit of “ flapper Florence ” as Tom 
christened liis younger sister. 

The night before she was expected they had 
a final council. 

“ But I don’t see what she’ll gain by it,” 
Helen said, referring to Winona’s plan. 

“ Don’t you see, I want her to realize how 
silly it is to act the way mother says she’s been 
doing. Perhaps seeing her own sister making 
an idiot of herself will bring her to her senses.” 

“ I don’t think it will,” Helen said some¬ 
what discouragingly. “ If I know Florence.” 

Winona called up a Beauty Shop the next 
day and made an appointment. Louise and 
she went there together after they left the 
Garnett House and for an hour and a half, 
Winona gave herself into the hands of a slim 
young girl who promised enthusiastically to 
make a beauty of her. Louise was allowed to 
sit on a high stool in the comer of the dressing 
room and watch her friend’s progress on the 
road to beauty. 

It was a changed Winona, indeed, who 
later went home in the crowded subway with 


60 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

the ever faithful Louise. Her eyebrows hadn’t 
needed to be shaped, fortunately, but they had 
been artificially darkened, as had her eyelashes. 
Her bobbed hair had been curled until it stood 
out all around her head like a Fiji Islander’s. 
She was rouged and powdered and perfumed. 

Men stared at her, and women too, but the 
men’s stares were cool and calculating or 
impudent, and the women’s, nearly all of them, 
were amused or disapproving. 

“ If I ever you home, I’ll breathe 
again! Louise whispered to Winona, that is, 
as well as anyone can whisper in the subway. 

Isn t it dreadful!’ Winona whispered 
back, half laughing, half aghast, “ But it’s 

worth it, if I manage to bring Florence to 
her senses.” 

Helen and Charles shrieked when they saw 
her, and drew her under the light for a better 
view. But Winona had no time to listen to 
them, now. She shook their detaining hands 
off, and ran up to the room she shared with 
Louise, to change her frock. She had let one of 
her dresses down until it almost swept the 
ground, and with her curled hair and some 
added powder and rouge, it was a completely 
changed Winona. 

“You certainly are a wonder!” Louise 
said, a little while later, as she watched Winona 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 61 


practice for the last time, the lighting and 
smoking of a cigarette, which she had taken 
from a little vanity box which hung on her arm. 
It had a place for powder and rouge, besides 
the compartment for cigarettes. Tom had 
given it to her. 

The Little Crooked House had many 
visitors, both boys and girls, and among the 
most frequent, were two boys who were on the 
same paper as Tom. He was bringing them up 
to dinner, that night and the three of them were 
stopping for Florence at the Grand Central 
Station. The boys had been taken into the 
secret of the regeneration of Florence and they 
had promised to help all they could. 

Winona had just dabbed some more per¬ 
fume behind her ears, with the glass stopper 
of the perfume bottle, when she heard the front 
door open with Tom’s key. She forgot her 
role in the first excitement of seeing her sister. 
Florence seemed glad to see Winona too, and 
for a time they talked of home while Florence 
washed her hands and face and brushed her 
hair. Winona was surprised to see that 
Florence was pale and rather mournful look¬ 
ing. She also looked in vain for the ear-rings 
and the powder and rouge, which she was sure 
Florence had been using, for her mother had 
told her so, frequently, in her letters. But she 


62 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

put the absence of them down to the fact that 
Florence might be afraid to use them before 
Tom and the others. Once or twice she had 
caught Florence looking at her eyebrows and 
rouged lips very hard, but nothing had 
been said. 

’’You look tired,” Winona said, gently, 
“ as though you hadn’t slept very well lately.” 

“ I haven’t been able to sleep much lately,” 
Florence said sadly, and then much to 
Winona’s surprise, she started to cry. Florence 
had never been an emotional child, and now 

Winona was almost at a loss as to what to do 
with her. 

“ Please don’t cry!” she begged, patting 
Florence’s back, and trying to think of some¬ 
thing really consoling to say, for she could tell 
the poor child was unhappy. 

But Florence only continued to bury her 
head in her arms and sob. Winona begged her 
to tell her what was the matter, but Florence 
refused, and then, as sudden as the storm of 
tears had broken, they cleared up, and 
Florence sat up, the same, very reserved 
Florence that Winona had always known. 
The weeping girl who had cried so hard 
a few minutes ago, had entirely disappeared. 
Winona knew how to handle this Florence who 
now sat on her bed. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 63 


“ Come and let me help you dress,” she 
said, “ We ll be late for dinner if you 
don’t hurry.” 

“ Thank you, I can do quite nicely, by 
myself,” Florence said, getting up and going 
over to bathe her eyes. But the traces of the 
tears seemed to have disappeared along with 
the girl who had been shedding them, and her 
eyes looked none the worse for the weeping. 

The little dress Winona buttoned up the 
back for Florence was neither too short nor too 
long. It was a simple little frock, that any girl 
might have for her graduation. But Winona 
again thought of herself and Tom as being 
the reason for the frock and the lack of 
make-up. 

When they went down stairs they found 
Tom and his two friends out in the kitchen 
with Louise and Helen, helping them with 
the dinner. Their laughter sounded gay and 
care-free and Winona watching Florence was 
glad to see the mournful look disappear al¬ 
most entirely. But the new look that took its 
place was strange to her too, and made her 
remember that it was time for her to begin to 
play her role. 

So, as though a garment had been slipped 
over her head, Winona’s manner changed en¬ 
tirely. She laughed affectedly, when she 


64 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


greeted the boys. She fluffed out her bobbed 
hair and opened her little vanity case to gaze 
in the mirror, and what she saw there evidently 
did not please her, for she proceeded to powder 
her already white nose and make up her mouth, 
until it was like a red scar against the white¬ 
ness of her face. Then she took a tiny gold- 
tipped cigarette from the box and asked Tom 
for a match, which she lighted by scratching it 
on the sole of one of her slippers, meanwhile 
balancing herself by holding on to the hand 
of the boy nearest her. 

Florence looked rather startled at first 
and then stole a look at Tom to see how he 
and the others were taking it. But they didn’t 
seem to mind, although Tom seemed even more 
quiet than usual. 

Preparations for dinner were progressing 
nicely and Helen sent some of them to set the 
table. Winona acted more wildly than ever. 
She flirted so abominably that it was all Louise 
could do to keep from laughing. 

“ Winnie’s a bom actress I” she whispered 
to Tom, under cover of the laughter at some 
silly joke of one of the boys. 

“ She’s too good!” Tom said, frowning 
slightly. He didn’t look at all happy. 

When they were finally seated at the table, 
with steaming, plates of soup before them 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


65 


David Browne, one of Tom’s friends, took a 
flask from his pocket and poured some of the 
contents into five glasses. 

“ Who’ll have some?” he asked, looking 
around at them all. “Tom? Fred? Charles? 
and who else? You girls had better draw lots 
for the remaining one.” 

The boys took theirs but set them down 
untasted. Helen and Louise shook their 
heads, Florence looked from one to the other 
and half extended her hand, but then decided 
not to, after seeing Tom’s face as he watched 
Winona, who hadn’t hesitated a moment about 
taking the fifth glass. She held it now, dain¬ 
tily, and looked preoccupied, as though she 
were trying to think of a toast to suggest. 

Helen and Charles and Tom were frankly 
disapproving. They all sat watching her and 
trying to catch her eye, so that they could 
shake their heads at her. Even Louise, thought 
that Winnie was going a little too far, even to 
save a sister. 

“Winona, I wouldn’t do that!” she said. 
But Winona only turned to David Browne, 
who sat next to her, and clinked her glass with 
his and swallowed the contents before she 
answered. The drink made her choke and 
gasp and take a drink of water. 

Florence watched her all the time. It was 


5 


66 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


hard to determine what her face expressed. 
Whether it was admiration, or disgust, or a 
touch of both, was hard to tell. 

After her drink Winona became gayer 
than ever. She teased the boys, made fun of 
Louise, told Helen her nose needed powdering 
and acted altogether as unlike the Winona 
Florence knew as possible. 

While they were removing the meat course 
dishes, Helen took the opportunity to whisper 
to Louise. 

“ When will this dreadful party be over?” 
she hissed. “ I really didn’t think Winona 
would go as far as to drink, and what could 
David Browne been thinking of to have 
brought anything?” 

“ You know Winnie would do anything to 
keep up the picture,” Louise said loyally. 

“ I wasn’t criticizing Winnie,” Helen said, 
“lam only worried that she’ll go too far for 
her own good and make herself ill.” 

“If she died, she’d go through with it,” 
Louise sighed. 

After dinner was over they went into the 
living room and Winona went to the Victrola 
and put on the jazziest record that Tom had 
brought home, during the last few days, and 
he had brought home a lot of jazzy ones for 
Florence’s benefit. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 67 


David Browne, who seemed to enjoy his 
role, went over and took Winona in his arms, 
ready for a fox trot. Tom asked Louise and 
Helen and Charles paired off, so there was only 
Fred Morrow left for Florence. Ever watch¬ 
ful of Florence, Winona had noticed her sway¬ 
ing shoulders and tapping feet, when the 
record had started, but when she caught 
Winona’s eyes she stopped and flushed and the 
sad little droop to her mouth showed again. It 
was evident that she had forgotten herself for 
the moment when she had first heard the music, 
and was really wanting to be dancing. But 
when Fred asked her to, she shook her head 
and remained sitting, her feet curled up under 
her, in the corner of the settee before the fire. 

Cheek to cheek, Winona and David circled 
the room. Louise and Tom, dancing more 
sedately, had more time to study Florence’s 
face. The flickering light of the fire made 
her seem older than she was. She made no 
effort to amuse Fred Morrow, who sat next 
to her and tried bravely to make conversation. 
She seemed only to want to be left alone and 
allowed to lose herself in a brown study. 

When the record was over Winona ran 
and changed it, and then taking David by the 
hand led him over to Florence and said: 

“ I think Florence has been waiting for 


68 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

you to dance with her because she knows you’re 
the best dancer here. Don’t feel badly Fred,” 
she continued laughingly, turning to Fred, 
you shall dance with me, I don’t mind if you 
step on my toes.” 

Everyone laughed at this, for Fred prided 
himself on his dancing and had been, if 
the truth was told, a trifle piqued by 
Florence’s attitude. 

David Browne wouldn’t take Florence’s 
“ no ” for an answer. He insisted and soon 
they were dancing, the others following. 

“Do look at Florence!” Louise said in a 
low voice to Tom. “ I think she is trying 
to show Winnie the proper way to dance. I 
really think Winona is putting it across to her. 
She looked quite worried and shocked at 
Winona’s actions at dinner.” 

“I don’t blame her,” Tom said. “If 
Winnie keeps this up I’ll be shocked myself. 
111 get a chance later, to tell David Browne 

what I think of him for bringing that stuff 
to drink.” 

I could have slapped you all, for being 
so noble and not drinking yours!” Louise said 
indignantly. I think you are perfectly 
horrid and unfair. Here is Winona trying to 
show Florence what perfect fools some girls 
are nowadays, when they think they’re being 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 69 

smart, and you criticize her because she’s 
carrying it through to the end. I think David 
Browne is the only one who’s really trying to 
help her act her part, and the rest of you are 
just prigs.” 

“ Look here Louise! ” Tom cried, “ I’m not 
criticizing her! She’s a perfect peach to do 
what she’s doing, and I know it. Only it sort 
of sets my teeth on edge.” 

When the dance was over, Winona dragged 
some cushions off the couch and sat down on 
the floor on them. She opened her vanity 
case and made up her face again, and even 
took a small comb and ran it through her hair. 

“ Girls certainly don’t leave much to the 
imagination these days,” Charles said, watch¬ 
ing her intently. “ I know that no words of 
mine could bring a blush to your already 
blushing cheek, Winnie. Now, Helen for in¬ 
stance. See how she blushes, at the mere 
mention of her name?” 

They all laughed, for it was true. Caught 
unawares, Helen did blush, long and red and 
all over. 

“Stop looking at me!” she begged. “I 
know there is absolutely no reason for me do¬ 
ing it. It was simply because Charles suggest¬ 
ed that I should!” 

When they found it teased her, they kept 


70 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

it up, until finally she was able to stop and 
the fun went out of it. 

David Browne sat cross-legged on the floor 
next to Winona. She was smoking another 
cigarette and they were talking in low tones, 
once or twice Winona giggled hysterically. 

Fred Morrow put on a record. A slow 
dreamy Hawaiian waltz. 

Winona refused to dance, saying it was 
entirely too slow, but Fred and Florence 
waltzed decorously around, Florence holding 
herself like a little ramrod. 

“ What a terrible time the child must be 
having, if she’s trying to live up to Tom and 
me! thought Winona, watching Florence 
through half closed lids, as she sat among her 
cushions. I wonder if she really wants to 
act the way I m doing. I don’t see how any¬ 
body really could want to, though! It’s so 
hard to keep it up all the time.” and she sighed. 

Louise couldn t resist laughing another 
minute, and made some excuse to leave the 
room. She was closely followed by Tom. 
Out in the friendly darkness of the hall they 
stood and rocked in silent laughter, until the 
tears ran down their faces. 

“ It’s the funniest thing I ever saw! ” Louise 
said finally, wiping her eyes on her handker¬ 
chief. It s as though a fairy came and waved 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 71 

a wand and made them change souls. And 
they’re both unhappy in their parts, I’m sure 
of that! And they both wouldn’t stop act¬ 
ing for anything.” 

Tom laughed too, and agreed that the 
situation was unique, but when they returned 
to the living room and the dancers, things 
seemed to be more serious than when they had 
left them. Winona her face flushed under 
the rouge, whether from dancing or the cock¬ 
tail it was hard to tell, was in the act of taking 
another drink. She was holding the slender 
glass in her hand which was shaking so that 
some of the liquid splashed over the side. 

“ Steady there!” David was saying famil¬ 
iarly, and he took hold of her hand and held it 
while he poured with the other. Winona only 
laughed and allowed his hand to remain where 
it was, and told him to hurry up. 

Tom flushed and started toward them, but 
Louise held him back, by a whispered word. 
Charles and Helen and even Fred Morrow, 
looked rather worried. 

But when Winona drained her glass and 
held it out for more, Louise gave a little cry 
and started forward. 

As though awakened from a stupor, 
Florence came to life. She was like a flash of 


72 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


lightning as she jumped for the glass and 
took it from Winona’s hand. 

“ Stop it 1 she cried, and her voice sounded 
horror-struck. “ Stop it Winnie!” she repeated, 
wildly. 

The others kept back. Louise watching 
with interest, noticed that the two girls, usual¬ 
ly so unlike, faced each other with a curiously 
like look of determination. 

“ Stop what?” Winona asked coldly. 

“Drinking that awful stuff!” Florence 
cried. “ Oh, I wish mother was here or. . .” 

But she hesitated at the second name. 
Winona looked Florence directly in the eyes. 

“ Mother or who?” she asked. 

Then another change came over Florence. 
Suddenly she became a self-conscious figure of 
a girl who knows a man is interested in her. 
She dropped her eyes before Winona’s 
searching look. 

“ Mother and who else?” Tom asked 
this time, coming over to stand between the 
two girls. 

“The man I most respect!” Florence 
answered primly. 

“A man!” cried Tom, “Good gracious! 
Florence and a man! A man you say? How 
old is he, eighteen or nineteen?” 

Dangerous sparks came into Florence’s 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


73 


eyes. She drew herself up to her full height 
and walked away from the centre of the room, 
where she had been standing before Winona, 
who still sat among her cushions. 

“ I said a man,” she said “ but if Tom and 
all of you are going to tease me, I’m not going 
to say any more, except that if he were here 

he would-” Words apparently failed her. 

She gave the glass she held a scornful little 
push, after she set it down on the table. 



CHAPTER FOUR 

The door of the Little Crooked House was 
always on the latch and people, knowing this, 
never bothered to ring or knock. So no one 
heard the front door open and some one cross 
the hall. No one heard anything, for they were 
all intent upon Winona and Florence. 

And so Winona, looking up from her nest 
of cushions, looked directly into the steady 
blue eyes of Billy Lee, who stood in the door¬ 
way. She was just about to take the glass, 
which David had filled at her request, but at 
the sight of Billy her hands dropped to her 
sides—the tinkling of the shattered glass 
accompanying the action. 

This was the picture that Billy Lee saw 
and his blue eyes were as cold as wind-swept 
icebergs, as he looked at Winona. 

“ I’m sorry,” he said in a voice as cold as 
his eyes. “I’m afraid I should have tele¬ 
phoned. I only got in town tonight and I 
thought I’d come up here directly.” 

For a moment everyone stayed as they 
were, as though they were holding the pose 
for the releasing click of the camera. Then 
Tom and Louise came forward and reached 
Billy at the same time. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 75 


David Browne held out his hands to 
Winona and helped her up and she too walked 
over to Billy, but she was constrained before the 
look in his eyes. Helen and Charles joined the 
little group around him then, and after that 
things seemed a little easier. David Browne 
and Fred Morrow remained where they were. 

Then it was Florence who on this evening 
of surprises who surprised them still more. 
She ran over, and flung herself on Billy and 
kissed him heartily—something that she had 
never done before. 

She then stood on tip-toe and whispered 
something in his ear. He colored up and shook 
his head, but finally appeared to agree, and 
excusing themselves, they went out into the 
hall, Florence still clinging to his hand. 

“ What do you think of that?” gasped 
Louise, “ the down-right-” 

“Taking our best friend right out from 
under our very noses. She’s certainly a swift 
worker, even for a flapper!” 

Winona, looked tired and rather pale under 
her rouge. She didn’t answer Louise, but 
went over and sat down on a very stiff 
backed chair. 

They could hear Florence and Billy talk¬ 
ing in low tones out in the hall, and in a few 
minutes they came back, looking rather embar- 



76 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

rassed but with the look too, of people who 
share a secret and intend to tell everybody 
about it at any cost. 

Florence walked over to Winona, where 
she sat in her stiff-backed chair, and said in 
a calm clear voice, with a suspicion of scorn 
in it: 

Winnie dear, you don’t have to pretend 
any more. I’ve been saved ages ago.” 

What do you mean?” asked Winona, 
flushing slightly. 

I mean this/ 4 said Florence haughtily, 
and thoroughly enjoying the upper hand, 
Anybody could see you weren’t used to 
doing any of the things you were pretending 
to do this evening. Here, let me show you how 
a real flapper, as you all call them, ’acts.” 

She took the vanity case from Winona and 
snapped it open. 

She gave the powder-puff a few little shakes 
before applying it to her nose and chin. Then 
she touched up her cheeks with the rouge. Her 
mouth, after moistening it with the pink tip 
of her tongue, she outlined dexterously with 
carmine, then ran a moistened finger-tip over 
her eye-brows. Next she took a cigarette and 
tapped it gently on the back of her hand before 
lighting it, keeping a firm eye fixed on the 
fascinated Winona, in the meantime. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


77 


“ That is to get the tobacco away from the 
end you have to put in your mouth,” she 
explained with condescension. She took a 
match and instead of lighting it on the sole 
of her slipper as Winona had done, she simply 
held it and snapped it alight with her finger 
nail in the approved style of movie heroes and 
villians. She didn’t blow it out, only waved it 
in the air to extinguish it. 

“ There,” she said, as she sank down on the 
pillows that Winona had left on the floor, and 
crossed her slim young legs, “ That’s the way— 
the up-to-the-minute way the flappers smoke. 
The trouble with you Winnie, was that 
you are behind times. Now' give me the 
flask please.” 

She held out her hand but David Browne 
looked across at Winona with raised eyebrows, 
and Winona shook her head. So he slipped 
it back into his pocket. 

“ Very w r ell,” she said, “ But Winnie, 
remember this. A cocktail is a thing to be 
enjoyed. Not to be gulped down in a hurry 
with a drink of water afterwards. You’d think 
you were taking medicine.” 

The others had been watching her in fasci¬ 
nation. The rouge and powder had changed 
her completely from a simple little school girl 


78 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

in a white frock, to a girl who looked as though 
she had been born old. 

“ Well, I guess I have explained enough,” 
she said wearily. “ And now I think it is time 
that you all went to bed after your hard 
day’s work.” 

She looked half scornfully at them all in 
turn. Fred Morrow and David Browne 
seemed glad of the opportunity to leave and 
bade everyone good night with alacrity. Tom 
went to the door with them. After they had 
gone he came back into the living room and 
went over to Florence. She had risen from the 
cushions and was standing before one of the 
windows, idly swinging Winona’s silver vanity 
case by its slender chain. He swung her 
, around to face him and put his hands on 
her shoulders. 

“ Now tell us young ’un,” he said. What 
do you mean by this up-stage manner?” 

“ Oh, nothing much—to you,” said 
Florence, But if you must know,” and here 
she cast a glance about before she made her 
severe announcement. “ I’m in love!” 

It was indeed an evening for strange things 
to happen. It was Winona now, who jumped 
up and went over to the window, pressing her 
forehead against the cool pane. Over her 
shoulder her voice came back to the others in 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 79 


the room, and it sounded as though the tears 
were very near the surface. 

“ Anyone could see that you were,” she said. 

“ What do you mean?” Louise and Tom 
said in unison. And Tom added, “You don’t 
mean to say that you’re taking her seriously? ” 

“ I don’t think you know who he is,” 
Florence said. “ He is the nicest man in the 
world.” And she sighed. She was in the full 
tide of her confession now, reticence forgotten. 

“ Oh, that man stuff again!” Tom muttered 
under his breath. 

Louise looked from one to the other and 
caught her breath. She could see what Tom 
could not see, that the girl was desperately in 
earnest. She realized too, that Florence was 
sixteen, after all. 

[Billy, meanwhile, walked over to Florence’s 
side and Winona watched their reflection in 
the window-pane as they stood together. 

“ Florence, dear,” he said gently, “ I really 
think you ought to tell them and not make 
them guess anymore.” 

“Well,” she said, and she looked directly 
at Tom as she said it “ Billy can tell you I’m 
in love with a man. If age counts he’s older 
than you Tom.” 

Winona turned and faced them. Her face 
was flushed and her eyes were shining. She 


80 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


too, had stopped regarding Florence as 
a child. 

“ Can’t you all see that its Billy she’s in 
love with?” she said turning to each of them. 

Everyone look surprised for a moment, and 
then before anyone had a chance to say any¬ 
thing, Helen went over and kissed Florence. 
Florence stood there bewildered, then 
she cried; 

“ You’re all wrongl It isn’t Billy Lee! 
I’m in love with Arthur Joyce! He’s a 
professor in High School and over thirty.” 
and she looked defiantly at Tom. Then her 
bravado broke down. She ran out of the room, 
and that was the last anyone saw of her that 
night. Later, Winona tried to persuade her 
to open her locked door, but she refused. 

The others left the living room, looked at 
one another. All but Billy, who walked over 
to the fireplace and pushed the remaining 
embers of the fire together, with the toe of his 
shoe, until they burst into a little flame. 

It s just as well to face it,” Louise said, 
sitting down suddenly upon the cushions on 
the floor. Our little Florence has undoubt¬ 
edly carried off the honors of w^ar this evening.” 

“Well, I’ll be darned!” Tom said. 

“ There’s no telling what women are going to 
do next, even if you live in the middle of a 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 81 


harem, as Charles and I do! Do you think it’s 
funny to always burst out in the place you’re 
least expected to? ” he asked Louise, but she 
only shook her head and laughed. 

As they always will do, the three girls 
banded together and denied that they were any 
more of a problem than men, and Tom crying 
“ Help!” dashed out into the kitchen to see 
that the door was locked, and went up the 
back stairs to bed, calling to Charles and 
Billy to follow" him or they would be slain 
and quartered. 

“ Who ever thought things would turn out 
the way they did?” sighed Winona, a few 
minutes later, when she and Louise were safely 
in their own room and were discussing it all. 
She sank into a chair wearily, and let Louise 
unhook her dress for her. 

“ Oh, I w^ant to get into a tub and soak for 
weeks to get this stuff all off!” she added as 
she rubbed cold cream on her face, and wiped 
it off again with a soft cloth. 

“You are a clever girl,” Louise said 
reassuringly. “You certainly did what you 
started out to do. It couldn’t be helped that 
Florence had already been saved from flapper- 
ism by that old man teacher! I’m not sure, 
that she hasn’t jumped out of the frying pan 
into the fire.” 


6 


82 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ Why do you think so?” Winona asked 
anxiously, and added, “it is so strange that 
mother hasn’t told me anything about him. 
I wonder if Florence is keeping it a secret and 
how Billy ever got to know so much?” 

“ Oh, Billy!” Louise said, “ He’s a regular 
Father Confessor. I’m sure he was one, in 
another incarnation. Why anyone wants to 
dash right up and tell him all. I’ve felt 
that way lots of times. But,” she added, “ Per¬ 
haps I’m wrong about the frying pan and fire. 
If she’s engaged to the Professor, of course 
it may be all right.” 

“ We’ll have to pin her in a corner and find 
out tomorrow.” Winona said firmly. “ When 
I knocked at her door a little while ago, she 
didn’t answer me, and I really was glad, for 
I didn’t feel I could point out any more what I 
thought were right paths, tonight. Especially 
after the way she sat on me before the others.” 

“And didn’t she enjoy doing it!” said 
Louise wrathfully. 

“ I wouldn’t have minded so much if Billy 
hadn’t come in,” Winona went on. “I’ll never 
forget the look in his eyes at first. If I know 
Billy, I’ll have something to settle with him 
tomorrow. I’m not sure yet, whether he knew 
I was only pretending.” 

“ I’m not sure either,” Louise said, “ And 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 83 


Winnie dear, now that it’s all over, I want to 
say that I do think you went a little too far 
when you drank that stuff of David’s.” 

“ Louise !” cried Winona, sitting up in bed, 
with her short hair standing out around her 
head, as though in surprise. “ Did you really 
think that it was something? Why, it wasn’t 
anything but tea, and horrid luke-warm tea 
at that—not even iced. That was why I drank 
so much water afterwards. David and I nearly 
died when Florence wanted some. How she 
would have crowed over that, after the way she 
showed off with the powder and cigarettes! If 
the others had only been less noble and had 
drank theirs, they would have soon found out, 
but they wouldn’t, I honestly thought it was 
rather mean of the boys.” 

“ Well, I might have known!” said Louise. 
“ I think it was horrid of them too, and I told 
Tom so. It’s really too good to keep from them 
but I don’t think they deserve to be told. 
Helen and Tom were so sure that you were 
headed for a life of iniquity that they were 
really worried. I know they thought that 
you had been deceiving them for years, as to 
really what kind of a girl you were.” 

Winona giggled into her pillow. 

“ They don’t deserve to be told,” she agreed. 
“ But just the same I’m going to tell Billy Lee 


84 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


in the morning. His eyes frightened me, and 
I’m not sure they had quite thawed out, even 
when he said goodnight.” 

“ I’d hate to have him really angry at me,” 
Louise said reflectively, “He has a way of 
showing how he feels, more than anyone else 
I know.” 

But Winona had fallen asleep, and only the 
sound of her regular breathing could be 
heard. Louise tiptoed over and put out the 
light and soon was fast asleep too. 

It wasn’t until the following afternoon 
that the opportunity came for Winona to have 
her talk with Billy. She wasn’t very much 
surprised to find him waiting for her when 
she came out of the Garnett House at five 
thirty. He had called for her before, when 
he was in town, and it generally meant tea 
somewhere, before they went home. 

It was a particularly pretty day. Even the 
old wharfs that lined the water-front were 
clothed like princesses in golden robes of 
spring sunshine. Winona and Billy were 
forced to walk along in silence for a time, for 
huge packing boxes obstructed the sidewalks 
in this trucking district, and they had to walk 
out and around the drays and the patient 
horses, waiting for their loads. But by and 
by they came to more quiet streets and then 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 85 


Billy, going directly to the thing which was 
uppermost in his thoughts, in a way that was 
characteristic of him, said: 

“ Look here, Winnie, were you really only 
pretending last night? Of course I knew you 
never made up your face that way, and I 
could tell you didn’t know how to smoke— 
but why did you drink that stuff?” 

“ You’re not the only one who thought I 
was going too far,” Winona said, glancing up 
at his stern profile. “ Helen and Tom thought 
I had gone quite beyond redemption.” 

“ Won’t you answer me?” he asked, frown¬ 
ing a little, but taking her arm to help her up 
a particularly high crossing. 

“ There really isn’t so much to tell,” 
Winona continued. “ If it will make you feel 
any better to know that the stuff in David’s 
flask was only tea, well, I’ll tell you. But 
I’d rather not talk about last night, at least 
my part in it, for I felt awfully foolish, after 
Florence began to show me how I ought to 
have really acted. I w'ant to ask you some¬ 
thing. Florence seems to have taken you into 
her confidence, and no one else. She absolute¬ 
ly refuses to talk to me. Could you tell me 
something about it, or did she ask you not to? 
I’m so worried about it all.” 

“ I think I can probably tell you all I 


86 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


know,” Billy said, after a moment of silence. 
“ She didn’t tell me much last night, only that 
she wanted to put a stop to your actions by 
telling you she didn’t need to be saved. I 
figured it mostly out for myself. And I ran 
up to see your parents today, in the car. I 
don’t think they knew very much about it, at 
first except that Florence suddenly turned 
over a new leaf and cut out her flapper friends 
and began to take more interest in her studies. 
They were glad as you might know. But I 
got Professor Joyce’s home address from the 
school. I called at the place where he boards, 
but he wasn’t there. He goes down to Plain- 
field for his vacations and over some week-ends. 
I really think Florence is infatuated with him, 
and we don’t want to hurt her if we can help it.” 

Winona’s blue eyes looked their gratitude 
and Billy felt more than repaid for the trip he 
had made. 

“ I think you’re the kindest person in the 
world!” she said gratefully. 

“ I’m very fond of Florence,” he said 
calmly, and let it go at that. 

People on the street turned to look at them, 
talking so earnestly and seemingly wrapped 
in a cloak of their own thoughts to the exclusion 
of all else. The streets seemed to spin them¬ 
selves out into a soft grey carpet, over which 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 87 


they scarcely noticed that they walked. Being 
together made them happy, even though the 
subject they were discussing was not a par¬ 
ticularly cheerful one. 

Billy went on to tell Winona she was all 
that her parents had confided to him, and 
when he was through she was silent for a time, 
going over it all in her mind. 

“So that is why she doesn’t wear rouge and 
smothers her hair under that unbecoming hair 
net,” Winona said, after a little while. “ And 
that was why her trunk was so heavy that Tom 
and Charles had a hard time carrying it up 
stairs, and when we opened it, found it full of 
the fattest dullest looking books you ever saw! 
The poor child! She’s trying to live up to 
the Professor! Does he know it?” she asked. 

“Your mother said she didn’t think he 
did,” Billy said. “ It seems that Florence used 
to sit up terribly late at night reading and 
she’d fall asleep with the light burning and the 
floor covered with the books, and they’d find 
her that way in the morning. And she got 
absent-minded and pale and she didn’t eat and 
your mother and father thought this was worse 
than the flapper stage almost and it was time 
to stop her. So your father went to see 
Professor Joyce and told him, and the Pro- 
fessor said he didn’t know she had been doing 


88 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


it, and lie’d speak to her about it. So he did, 
and Florence came home and broke down and 
cried and begged your mother not to mention 
it to you or Tom or your father, but she loved 
the Professor. Your mother promised, but 
only on the condition that Florence should 
make her Easter vacation visit to you, as she 
had planned. Yes,” he continued, “ Florence 
has confessed to being in love with a man at 
least fifteen years older than she is, and she’s 
taking the entire affair with the tragicness that 
only a girl her age can.” 

“ What kind of a man is he? ” Winona 
asked interestedly. “Did mother tell you?” 

“ Yes. He is tall and dark and slim and 
nice looking. His voice is soft and purring. 
(This is Florence’s own description of it.) He 
praises his pupils highly, thus getting double 
the work out of the girls, but making the boys 
take advantages sometimes. When they do 
this—well, according to Florence, he knows 
how to handle them too !” 

“I’m so sorry that mother is worried,” 
cried Winona. She could see her mother sit¬ 
ing by the tear-stained Florence and trying 
to comfort her as she used to do, when Florence 
was a little girl, and her doll was broken. And 
Florence, Winona was sure, was being ter¬ 
ribly superior about the whole thing, seeing 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 89 

herself as a woman who had experienced love, 
who knew the heights and depths of it; and 
quite pitying her mother. It was so like 
Florence to think that she alone felt things. 
She had a way of always seeing herself as the 
heroine of life, with her family and friends 
standing around, a devoted but sometimes 
critical chorus of minor characters. She 
probably thought of Mrs. Merriam as someone 
to whom love had to be explained. Surely, she 
never could have felt the thrill, as Florence 
did over her Professor, when she saw the brown 
bearded Mr. Merriam coming down the street 
toward her. 

And here, Winona smiled tenderly, for she 
knew that Mrs. Merriam being the wise mother 
that she was, had probably sat patiently listen¬ 
ing while Florence had explained it thoroughly 
to her. 

“We’ve got to do something about it!” 
Winona said firmly. “ Do you think Florence 
thinks the Professor loves her in turn? And 
if he does, do you think they could ever marry ?” 

“ That’s what I don’t know,” said Billy, 
knitting his brows in perplexity. “ I’ve tried 
to find out something about him, but he doesn’t 
seem to have made any intimate friends. He 
goes to Plainfield every chance he gets.” 


90 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ I think father ought to go to Plainfield 
and look him up,” Winona said. 

“ That’s what I suggested,” Billy agreed. 
“ I told your mother I thought she ought to 
tell your father all about it, so she did. And 
they are going to let us know tomorrow, after 
your father gets back from Plainfield, just 
what he’s found out.” 

“You certainly think of everything, Billy,” 
Winona said, looking at him admiringly. 

“ One last word,” said Billy, “ and then 
we won’t talk about it anymore. Plorence 
acts as though she were engaged. She never 
goes out anymore with the boys she knows, to 
dances and things. She just sits around and 
mopes. But, as your father said, the engage¬ 
ment may all be in her own little head. Pro¬ 
fessor Joyce may not be serious at all. He may 
just think she’s a pretty child, and is rather 

flattered bv her admiration.” 

* 

“We ought to get a letter from mother the 
day after tomorrow,” Winona said, “ but I 
think I’ll call her up tomorrow on the phone 
and talk to her. It will be lots more satis¬ 
factory all around.” 

“ Winnie, dear,” Billy said, before he left 
her. “I want to tell you what a peach you are 
for doing what you did last night. As for the 
rest of us, we were all as mean as we could 
be about it. I’m sorry I ever thought, for a 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 91 


minute, that you were really drinking, and 
even if you had been, I should have under¬ 
stood that you were only doing it because it 
fitted in with the part you were playing. I’m 
sorry, will you forgive me ? I don’t know quite 
what I would do if you were ever angiy at me.” 

“Of course,” Winona answered shyly, for 
she had never known the generally reserved 
Billy, to be as fluent as he now was. It seemed 
rather odd to her, but she liked it. The 
memory of Roger flashed across her mind. 
Roger would have said the same thing, if he 
had been walking with her, but it always came 
rather easily to Roger to express himself. 
From Billy, it was indeed a compliment. 

Winona never quite knew just why she 
kept it all to herself that night. She was very 
kind to Florence and refrained from asking 
her any questions about the previous evening. 
Louise knowing that this was not a natural 
thing for Winnie to do, as she said she was 
going to ask Florence for further details, 
finally pinned Winona in a corner of 
the kitchen, after dinner and demanded 
an explanation. 

“ The child is going around like a martyr, 
yearning to tell how it felt when the lions bit 
it!” Louise said. “ Why don’t you let her talk? 
Once or twice when she started, you stopped 
her completely. You know she’s dying for 


92 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


us to ask her questions. In fact, I’m afraid 
she’ll tell all, in a little while, of her own free 
will. You know yourself, you’d be dying to 
talk about it, if you were in love.” 

Winona laughed. 

“ I’ll never forget Helen and Charles. 
How we used to listen to them, do 
you remember?” 

“ There you go again,” Louise said, turning 
away. Shutting me off in the politest way, 
like a society matron turning the tide of con¬ 
versation away from soap, which might reflect 
upon her husband and how he got his money! 
Well if you Won’t talk about it there’s no use 
trying. F or anyone as sweet as you 
are, you have the firmness of a Pilgrim 
Father underneath.” 

“ Don’t be huffy, Louise dear,” said 
Winona, kissing her friend on one of her rosy 
cheeks. “ I don’t feel like talking about it 
tonight. But wait until I do. You know I 
always share my secrets with you, but in this 
thing, like Sherlock Holmes, I want to have 
a complete case to lay before you, Watson.” 

They went back into the living room with 
their arms entwined and Louise suggested a 
game of Parchesi, which took up the rest of 
the evening. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


Mr. Merriam walked up the pretty Main 
Street of the Jersey town. A straight row of 
elm trees met over head and formed a cool arch¬ 
way of budding green. He had inquired at the 
post-office as to where the Professor lived and 
had been told that it was the last house at the 
end of the street. As he walked along, he 
went over in his mind, all that he would say 
to the young professor. But when he at last 
came to the white house, set back in a garden in 
which lilac and snowball bushes were just be¬ 
ginning to bloom, his carefully planned line 
of action had to be completely changed. 

Sitting on a porch swing was the professor, 
and on his lap he held a small boy. As Mr. 
Merriam put his hand on the gate, the small 
boy pointed a stubby finger at him and said. 

“ Look, father.” 

His father looked as directed and when he 
recognized Mr. Merriam, he set the little boy 
firmly on his feet and got up and went down 
the path to meet him. He held out his hand 
and said, “ How do you do? ” in a voice that 
tried to hide the surprise that was in it. 

Florence’s father didn’t waste much time 


93 


94 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


in getting down to the reason for his visit. He 
plainly and frankly explained the whole affair, 
and told how he and Mrs. Merriam were 
worried by it. 

The two men talked for about an hour, 
then the professor went in to his wife. While 
he waited, Mr. Merriam looked around the 
tiny garden. It was well-kept and pretty and 
had the look of a well-loved place. He found 
himself liking this man, who apparently, was 
entirely innocent as to the state of Florence’s 
feelings for him. He liked the small boy, too, 
who now stood before him, round-eyed but 
polite, and eyeing the gold and agate seal which 
swung upon Mr. Merriam’s watch chain. 

Mr. Merriam had just taken him upon his 
lap and was explaining the use of the seal, 
when the professor’s wife came out. She was 
small, with brown hair and eyes and a wist¬ 
ful mouth. She seemed the type of women 
that professors and teachers always marry, be¬ 
cause they are good, homeloving, sweet souls. 
Evidently she had been told something about 
the affair for she greeted Mr. Merriam in a 
friendly way and sat down in the chair which 
her husband had vacated. 

“ I’ve told Ruth about it,” Professor Joyce 
said, sitting down on the top of the steps lead¬ 
ing to the pretty garden. “I think we had 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 95 

better talk it over and decide upon the kind¬ 
est way of letting Florence know that I’m 
not in love with her.” 

“I’m so sorry for her, poor little girl,” 
said Mrs. J oyce kindly. “I’m afraid no matter 
how we go about it, she’s going to be hurt. To 
me there is nothing worse than disillusioning 
youth, and it seems that this is what we’ll 
have to do.” 

And so for another half hour they talked, 
and Mr. Merriam accepted their invitation to 
stay to luncheon, and they talked some more, 
afterwards. And they told Mr. Merriam why 
Mrs. Joyce was living in Plainfield and not 
with her husband in the town where he was 
teaching. Professor Joyce had received a 
very good offer of a place in the High School 
which Florence attended. They had tried to 
rent this little Plainfield house but had not been 
able to do so, and they could not afford to let 
it stand empty, it was finally decided that she 
should stay here with the two children and he 
would come home as often as he could. There 
were quite a few week-ends that he could slip 
away, and every holiday. In the meanwhile the 
house was still in the hands of the real estate 
agents and a little white sign, tacked to one of 
the porch pillars told that it was still for rent. 

But nothing definite was mapped out. 


96 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


after all their conversation, and Mr. Merriam 
on his way home on the four o’clock train lean¬ 
ed has head wearily back against the cushions 
and wished them all well out of it. He went 
over all that he had heard and seen that day 
and he was convinced that Professor Joyce 
was innocent. No one could see him with his 
wife and children and not realize that. To 
him, Florence had been a pretty little school 
girl. A girl, whom he had noticed especially 
because of her obvious intention to be the 
Sappiest of the group of flappers in her class. 
She had seemed so pretty and well-bred that 
he had regretted deeply her foolishness, and one 
day, when she had stayed after school to ask 
him about some book of poetry he had recom¬ 
mended the class to read, he tried to get on the 
other side of her flippant manner, and finding 
it easier than he thought, was pleasantly sur¬ 
prised at her intelligent mind and a seriousness 
that he had never suspected. 

From that time on there had been many 
talks, and he had been glad, after awhile, to 
notice that she was changing her ways. She 
dressed more in accordance with the rules of 
the school and used less slang. But that she 
was in love with him, had never dawned upon 
the professor. All the love that had been in 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 97 

the affair was in Florence’s own little 
romantic mind. 

And so Mr. Merriam leaned has head wear¬ 
ily back against the cushions and wished he was 
home with his wife so that they could talk it 
over. He was sure that she would know the 
kindest and easiest way to break it to Florence. 

All that day Winona had been restless. 
Even the children who came to the library that 
afternoon failed to hold her interest. One of 
the district women brought in her new baby 
to be Weighed. On any other day, Winona 
would have loved the funny little red-faced, 
claw-handed thing, but although she thought 
it cunning, she could not quite forget the 
unhappiness that might possibly be for 
Florence, and so turned it back to its mother 
sooner than she would have ordinarily done. 

She was glad to find Billy Lee waiting for 
her in his car outside the Garnett House. She 
climbed thankfully into the front seat next 
to him and sank back against the comfortable 
cushions with a sigh. Billy, as usual was as 
kind as he could be. They talked of every¬ 
thing but that which was uppermost in their 
minds, for a time. When they reached the 
residential section, Billy stopped the car out¬ 
side of a hotel opposite Central Park and 
turned to Winona. 


7 


98 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ I thought you might like to call your 
mother up before we go home,” he explained. 

“ I would,” Winona said gratefully, getting 
out. “ But please come in with me, Billy. I 
don’t think I’ll mind hearing anything, half so 
much if you’re there.” 

So Billy went in with her and waited outside 
the booth door until he heard her get her num¬ 
ber. He walked away then and went over to 
a directory and idly turned the pages. 

Winona came out of the booth with her eyes 
filled with tears. 

4 Oh, Billy!” she said, 44 he’s married! 
What shall we do about poor little Florence? ” 
Come out to the car,” he said, taking her 

arm and guiding her down the steps to the 
waiting car. 

Now we can talk,” he said, helping her in 
and walking around to the other side to take 
his place at the wheel. He turned the car into 
the new green of the park. 

44 Mother says that she thinks that the best 
tiling to do is to take Florence up there and 
let her visit the Joyces. I don’t think that is 
right. It will hurt her terribly. But she is 
a stubborn little thing and I guess she won’t 
listen if we try to explain it to her. However, 

I told mother I was going to try and get her to 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 99 


listen to me tonight. I hate to do it, but it 
does seem kinder.” Winona said. 

“ Poor little kid,” Billy said. “ It’s a 
shame she has to be made to feel so badly. I 
wish there was something we could do to lessen 
it for her, but I suppose it’s like a tooth. She’ll 
feel better after it’s out, but I never could see 
the consolation in that myself. It will be 
kinder to tell her, but I think your mother is 
right. I don’t think she’ll believe it.” 

“I’m afraid she won’t,” Winona sighed, 
“ but it has to be done. I’m going to try to 
make the rest of her visit as nice as I can. 
She’s been so stand-offish since the other night, 
that it has been hard to try to be friends with 
her. She has spent her days in the Metro¬ 
politan Museum looking up things Professor 
Joyce has told her about, and she writes about 
them in a book, every night, which she says she 
is going to give him when she goes home. 
Louise invited her to a party the Girl Scouts 
are going to have in the Garnett House, to¬ 
morrow, but Florence refused because she said 
she wasn’t interested in such babyish things. I 
thought Louise would laugh or tell her that 
most of the Girl Scouts are older than Florence, 
but she didn’t.” 

“ Well, I’m going to telephone for tickets 
for tonight and to call Tom up and tell him to 


■* r> 9 


100 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


bring another boy up to dinner, that is if you 
don’t mind,” Billy said. “ We’ll fill that poor 
kid’s life with something besides the Metro¬ 
politan Museum and Girl Scout’s parties. She 
won’t think she’s too old to see “ The Bat ” will 
she? Older folks than she have gone and been 
frightened too. Besides it will be something 
she can write about in that book of hers.” 

They stopped at a drug store this time, and 
Winona waited in the car while Billy tele¬ 
phoned. He came out smiling. 

“I’ll bet she won’t write in her book wtiat 
Andrew Drummond will say to her tonight. 
Tom’s going to bring him. We’ll get him 
interested in her before we get home, by tell¬ 
ing him nice things about her all the way up in 
the car. I said I’d pick him and Tom up at the 
‘ Moon ’ office.” 

“ I’m beginning to feel better already,” 
Winona said. Her eyes were shining and the 
pretty color had returned to her cheeks. Billy, 
looking down at her, thought how pretty she 
was, sitting there. He wondered what she 
would say if he told her that the real reason he 
wanted to help Florence was because she was 
Winona’s sister. But he didn’t want to make 
her unhappy, as it might do, if he told her now, 
when she was already worried about Florence, 
so he only smiled at her in his friendly way 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 101 


and carefully hid anything else which might 
have been in his eyes at the moment. 

It was a pleasant evening. Winona and 
Billy found a minute or two by themselves, 
and she whispered her thanks to him. Andrew 
Drummond was a charming boy. He had hair 
as red as Louise’s own, and a dimple that was 
a surprise, when he smiled or laughed. His 
high spirits were infectious, and the young 
people enjoyed themselves in spite of the fact 
that they were sorry for Florence. That is 
they all enjoyed themselves but Florence, who 
seemed wrapped in a gray veil of aloofness, and 
refused to have anything to do with the boy 
with his red hair and pretty dimple. But 
Andrew refused to leave her alone. When he 
found that she wouldn’t speak to him, unless 
spoken to, he put himself out to ask her ques¬ 
tions, which she had to answer, or appear rude. 
And at one particularly funny line in the play, 
he turned to find her laughing as whole-heart¬ 
edly as he was himself. He looked again, very 
hard this time, for the laughing girl was so 
different from the sober little one, that it seem¬ 
ed hard to believe it could be the same one. 
He spent the rest of the evening, trying to 
get her to laugh again, but she refused. 

After they went home and Andrew had 
gone, and Florence had retired to her room to 


102 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


write up her book, which she was keeping for 
the professor, Winona and the others sat 
around the fire which they had built more for 
the friendliness of it, than because they needed 
its warmth. 

Then between them Billy and Winona 
explained to the others all that they knew about 
Florence and Professor Joyce. It was finally 
decided that Winona should tell Florence, 
making it as easy as she could for her. Then 
if Florence didn’t believe her, they would take 
a trip to Plainfield on the following Saturday, 
and let her see things for herself. 

The following morning Winona jumped 
half out of bed before she was quite awake. 
She remembered that something important was 
happening this day, and in her sleepy mind 
the thing which was to happen seemed half 
pleasant and half sad. While she turned 
on the water for her bath it came to her. 
The pleasant part was the fact that she 
and Louise were taking a group of library and 
playground children from the Garnett House 
to the circus. The unpleasant thing was that 
she had to tell Florence about her professor. 
She sighed as she remembered this, and then 
said wisely to herself, “ one thing at a time,” 
and proceeded to think of the circus 
party alone. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 103 


For weeks her library and Louise’s play¬ 
ground children had been as good as gold. 
Hands had been kept clean, faces washed, and 
hair, more or less, combed, for there was a 
reason. Some of the boys found hair combing 
a little too much to be expected of them, but 
they had nobly compromised by having their 
heads neatly shaved. They looked like a gang 
of small but clean convicts. 

The reason for this sudden cleanliness was 
a circus party. The first year that the girls 
had been in the Garnett House they hadn’t 
known quite what to do to reward the good 
children at the end of the season, spent in 
fighting soiled hands and faces and tangled 
hair. But Winona, coming down on the top 
of a buss one spring morning, had seen the 
flamboyant signs of “ the greatest show on 
earth.” It wasn’t very long ago that a circus 
had meant a great deal to Winnie, and she 
immediately thought how much the children 
would love it. 

So when she got to the Neighborhood 
House she talked it over with the head worker, 
who became interested and helped her to work 
out her plans. Winona went up to see the 
comfortabte looking manager of the circus, 
and found that one day of the season as set 
aside especially for poor children. She im- 


104, WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


mediately told him what she wanted and he gave 
her choice of seats. So having chosen the row 
behind the boxes, she went jubilantly home. 

And with the approach of circus day this 
year, the children had flung out daily, sensitive 
feelers as to whether “ the lady who shot the 
boids ” would be there this year again and in 
all the beauty of her wliite satin and golden 
chariot and milk-white horse. The fate of the 
“ men who rode in their underthings ” was also 
deeply discussed. Would these beautiful 
creatures be there, if by any chance they should 
attend the circus again this year? And so 
Winona had again interviewed the comfortable 
looking manager and he had again given her 
her choice of seats. 

“ We’ll ask Florence to go with us,” she 
said to Louise as she called her, “She can help 
with the children and it may take her mind off 
the professor for a little while. She used to 
love the circus when she was small.” 

But when she knocked at her door a few 
minutes later, to ask her, Florence refused, and 
added in a mysterious way, that she had some¬ 
thing else to do. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think she 
was going out with the professor,” Louise 
said, when Winona told her. 

“ She is going somewhere, or at least she 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 105 


wants us to think that she is,” agreed Winona, 
thoughtfully. “ I wish I knew.” 

“ Well, don’t worry, Winnie dear,” Louise 
said comfortingly, “ She’s probably only going 
to see an old mummy so she can write about it 
in that book of hers. You know she’d act as 
though she was going to interview the Queen 
of England, if she only went to the comer 
grocery to get a can of peas.” 

Winona couldn’t help laughing in spite 
of herself. Nevertheless she thought about 
her sister all the way down in the subway. But 
she soon forgot to worry when she turned the 
corner of the street where the Garnett House 
stood, for a neat and orderly row of children, 
watched over by a big kindly policeman, stood 
waiting for her and Louise. The policeman 
touched his cap when he saw the girls and 
greeted them with a hearty good morning. 

“ I’ve been keeping the kids in order for 
you,” he said, with a grin. “ Sure, this little 
chap was so afraid he wouldn’t be there in time 
he came at seven and he has been standing here 
ever since.” 

The children delightedly but reservedly 
cheered the girls and more than one eye turned 
upwards to gaze with admiration at the new 
hat Winona was wearing for the occasion. She 
had worn it to please them and to give them a 


106 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


dress up feeling, as they often said she gave 
them, when she wore a particularly pretty 
frock down to the library. 

A wholesale grocery man in the district 
had loaned one of his delivery trucks to take 
the children up to the Madison Square Garden, 
and now it came along and the janitor and the 
driver, helped the children on and the girls 
climbed up too, and were roped in all around 
the sides, so that there would be no falling off. 

The large red truck was a gay sight, with 
its flag draped sides and its human cargo. The 
children had one and all dressed themselves in 
their best and two little Italian sisters, one in 
a pink frock trimmed with light blue facings, 
and the other in orange and red, were the hub 
around which the wheel of lesser colors 
revolved. Solomon in all his glory, was never 
such a wondrous sight. 

And the most exclusive avenues opened 
wide for their coming. Something about the 
gayness of it all acted as an open Sesame to 
the traffic policemen’s heart and they rolled 
along over the smooth roadways, as Cinderella 
doubtlessly rolled to her first party. 

Once they were held up by the traffic and 
an elderly man seated in the rear of a powerful 
motor car with a liveried chauffeur at the wheel, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 107 

leaned forward and asked them where they 
were going. 

“ Circus!” they all answered of one accord, 
and as though that magic word needed no 
explaining. The old man smiled and the smile 
seemed to break his face up into small unac¬ 
customed wrinkles. 

“Will you take this and buy some pink 
lemonade and peanuts?” he asked gruffly, 
holding out a ten dollar bill toward Louise. 

She was just about to shake her head and 
thank him, when the policeman blew his whistle 
and the man, his car released by the signal, 
pressed the bill into the nearest brown hand and 
was off. Winona tried to get his number so 
that they could look him up through that and 
thank him, but the car had flashed out of sight. 
Louise took the bill from the child and folded it 
and put it in her hand bag. 

When they reached the massive stone build¬ 
ing of Madison Square Garden, the ropes were 
let down and everyone helped out. Louise kept 
them in line while Winona went ahead to see 
about the tickets. Her friend the manager was 
waiting for her in the lobby with a handful of 
pink cardboards. 

“ Here they are,” he said. “ I wish I could 
let you have a couple of boxes but we keep them 
for the crippled children, you know.” Winona 


108 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


turned to see some of these poor little unfortu¬ 
nates being carried in by the circus attendants. 
She turned back to the manager and thanked 
him and went back to Louise and the children. 

“ If anyone should go to heaven I think 
Mr. Campbell should!” she said to Louise later, 
as they watched him lift a little crippled child 
from its wheel chair into one of the front row 
box seats. But something in the idea of his 
being an angel, with a harp and his brown 
derby, amused Louise, although it was rather 
a twisty little smile. 

The sawdust and the gold paint and the 
roasted peanuts smelt wonderfully, the children 
thought. There was a thrill in the air; any¬ 
thing was liable to happen at a circus! 

The ten dollar bill bought a bag of peanuts 
for each child, and left five dollars more to be 
divided. They broke up into whispering 
groups to decide it all and Winona and Louise 
and a balloon man and a pink lemonade man 
and a popcorn man, all waited patiently for 
them to make up their minds. Finally some 
decided upon red and blue balloons, which, 
after they had been enjoyed to the full, could 
be taken home to less fortunate brothers and 
sisters. Some decided that there was no time 
like the present to get enough to eat and so 
they delighted the hearts of the lemonade and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 109 


popcorn men. But one little boy, shyly shook 
liis head repeatedly as the balloon man offered 
his wares and the pink lemonade man clinked 
his glasses enticingly. Eyes as large and black 
as his own looked at him in wonderment. 

“ What do you want, Sammie?” Louise 
asked finally, seeing that he could not or would 
not make up his mind. 

“I’d like to have the money,” he said in a 
low whisper. “ That’s all, the money.” 

So she gave it to him, and he stored it away 
in some mysterious pocket and proceeded to 
enjoy himself. 

They found that they were early enough to 
see the animals before the performance began. 
Holding tightly to the hand of their partner, 
they walked from cage to cage. Louise led 
the way, and Winona brought up the rear. 
There were many animals to intrigue them, but 
the elephants and the zebras and the camels 
held them longest. It was only the brazzy 
blare of the bugle announcing that the per¬ 
formance was about to begin, that tore them 
from the cage which held the almost human 
monkey. Even he seemed to realize that this 
was a special occasion, for he sat at his table, 
and rang his bell, and ate the food that was 
brought to him with his knife and fork quite 
neatly. When the bugle blew he jumped up 


110 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and ran over to the child-size white bed which 
stood in the corner of his cage, jumped in and 
pulled the covers up over his face, leaving only 
one bright eye peeking out. 

They had to hurry to get to their seats in 
time, and the parade had already begun before 
they were finally settled. Winona entirely 
forgot the unhappy task before her that after¬ 
noon, and found herself thoroughly enjoying 
every minute. The children, of course, were 
spell-bound. They were quite sure that only 
people from fairyland, or at least who knew 
the fairies, could ride the milk-white horses and 
swing by heads and toes far above the sawdust 
earth. And they were positive that they had 
never seen such beautiful women and such 
handsome men. 

But the height of the morning was reached 
when the chariot races were announced. A 
span of four black horses won the final race 
amid the shrill cheers from a thousand little 
throats. And then the circus was over. The 
last of the performers went through the black 
doors and a red-coated band began to play the 
Star Spangled Banner. Winona and Louise 
collected hats and coats and finally got the 
children down the stairs and out to the truck. 

As they were passing the Metropolitan 



FLORENCE WAS WALKING ALONG, DEEPLY ENGROSSED IN THE CONVERSATION 
OF THE RED-HAIRED, HAPPY-HEARTED ANDREW 





















WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 111 


Building, Winona suddenly touched Louise’s 
arm and whispered. 

“ Look! There’s Florence, and she’s with 
some man!” 

Louise looked, but the couple were too far 
away as yet to be able to distinguish the man, 
although it was easy to recognize Florence by 
her clothing. But soon they were up to them, 
for Florence and her escort were walking up¬ 
town, while the truck was going down. 
Winona turned to Louise in wide-eyed sur¬ 
prise, for Florence, whose heart was wrapped 
up in a married man and whose same heart 
Winona expected to have to hurt her by telling 
her of his marriage, was walking along, deeply 
engrossed in the conversation of the red-haired, 
happy-hearted Andrew. 

As the truck thundered past them they 
looked up and saw the girls. Florence had 
the grace to blush, but Andrew took off his 
hat and waved it enthusiastically at them. 

“ She didn’t have a hair-net on!” Louise 
said, turning to Winona, “ Nor a book under 
her arm!” 

“ And her hair looked so pretty that way, 
curling out from under her hat,” Winona 
answered. And she added: “ Oh, Louise, 
perhaps she won’t feel so badly after all!” 


112 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ Perhaps she won’t,” agreed Louise, and 
Winona felt her spirits going up. 

That evening at dinner, Florence did not 
mention Andrew, and this rather surprised 
the girls for they thought that she would make 
some excuse for having met him, but as she 
seemed not to want the subject discussed, they 
didn’t question her. 

As they were washing the dishes, Winona 
said to Louise: 

“ I feel perfectly dreadful. Do you 
honestly think I ought to tell her about 
Professor Joyce?” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know,” Louise said 
thoughtfully. “ Perhaps it would be kinder 
than letting her find it out for herself, but I 
don’t think she’s going to believe you.” 

“ She’ll probably think I made it up to keep 
her from him,” Winona said with a sigh, “ But 
I guess it has to be done, so I’ll go up to her 
room after she goes to bed.” 

It seemed to Winona that it was one of the 
shortest evenings they had ever spent in the 
Little Crooked House. They hardly seemed 
to settle down to their sewing or reading, when 
Florence announced it was time for her to go 
up to her room. Three pairs of eyes watched 
her depart, and then turned sympathetically 
to Winona. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 113 

“ I’ll wait until I’m sure she’s in bed,” 
Winona announced, putting off the evil 
moment as long as possible. “ Oh, I don’t 
want to do it!” she added ahnost tearfully. 

“ I think we ought to just let her go to 
Plainfield and find out for herself,” Tom said. 

“ I think Tom is right,” Charles said. It 
was seldom that Charles gave an opinion unless 
asked, and the others now turned to look 
at him. 

“ Why? ” asked Louise bluntly. 

“ Because she’s not going to believe 
Winnie,” he answered, and said no more. 

“ Well, I know that it would have broken 
my heart if anyone had led me up to Charles’ 
house and I had found him married,” Helen 
said with conviction, for once, disagreeing with 
her husband. “ I would much rather have had 
someone tell me.” 

“ You were always a sensible person,” Tom 
said, “ and I say that with all due respect to 
my little sister, Florence. She’s as stubborn 
as a mule, as we all well know.” 

“ There’s nothing to do but go,” Winona 
said, getting up reluctantly from the couch and 
walking toward the door. 

“ Call us if you need any help,” Tom said 
somewhat flippantly and Winona turned and 
frowned at him. 


8 


114 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ You are very unkind, Tom, to make a 
joke of it. Poor little Florence is going to 
be badly hurt, and by her own sister too, I 
honestly don’t think that it is funny.” 

Tom flushed, “ I’m sorry,” he said rather 
shame-facedly, “ I was only trying to cheer 
up your fainting spirit.” 

“I’m sorry I was so cross too,” Winona said 
impulsively, “ I guess it is because I’m 
so nervous.” 

She turned at the doorway again, and 
looked back at them and then went slowly up 
the stairs and knocked softly at Florence’s door. 

“ Come in,” Florence said in her rather 
high pitched voice, and Winona entered. She 
found her sister propped up in bed with a pile 
of books next to her, and a large one opened 
on her lap. It was evident that she was settled 
for a long night of reading. 

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Winona said, 
sitting down on the edge of the bed, after push¬ 
ing some of the larger books to one side to 
make room for herself. 

“ There is something I want to tell you, 
dear, she began trying to choose her words 
with care and wishing herself anywhere but 
sitting on Florence’s bed. 

“ Go on,” Florence said somewhat pettishly, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 115 


as though she resented being interrupted in 
her reading. 

It was probably that little note of resent¬ 
ment in her voice that suddenly made it easier 
for Winona to tell her the truth. 

“ I may as well be frank,” Winona said, 
rather shortly too. “ I think you know that 
you have been worrying mother and father 
quite a lot lately.” 

“ So they have complained to you,” 
Florence said, sitting up higher among 
her pillows and looking at Winona some¬ 
what scornfully. 

“ Mother and father never complain,” 
Winona said gently. Florence was making 
it easier for her than she realized by her 
scornful manner. “But they were worried; 
first because you were going with that silly 
high school crowd, and from what I’ve heard 
being one of the silliest in it. Now, although 
they haven’t told me much about it, they are 
worried about you because suddenly you’ve 
changed entirely, and insist upon sitting up 
late at night reading these books and being 
cross and rude when anyone tried to ask 
you not to.” 

“ Oh, Winnie,” Florence said crossly, 
“ don’t always be so virtuous. I know mother 
and father have told you that I worry them. 


116 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


But they know why I read these books and 
want to do things to please Professor Joyce. 
I told you that I love him. Why can’t you 
let me alone? All I ask is a chance to lead 
my own life! ” And she looked like a 
young tragedy queen, sitting there, then she 
added, spitefully: “ You’re leading your life, 
living here and going to business every day. 
I’d like to see anyone tell you what to do! ” 

“ Florence dear, can’t you see that mother 
and father and I only have your good at heart? 
We ask you not to go to extremes in things, 
and sitting up night after night reading this 
way, is going to hurt you terribly. And it 
doesn’t make the slightest bit of impression on 
Professor Joyce, he is too wrapped up in his 
own life to notice what you are doing.” 

Florence sat up perfectly straight at this 
and her face was like a little fury’s as she said: 

“ Winnie, if you are going to act as though 
you thought Professor Joyce was treating me 
like a child and not noticing me, I’ll ask you 
to leave my room. We understand one another 
perfectly. I know he is only waiting to ask 
father, until he feels that he has enough money 
to support me.” And she added smugly, with 
a toss of her head: “ I’ll be willing to bet I’ll 
be married long before you are to your 
precious Billy.” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 117 


Winona turned white. If she had been 
asked to analyze her feelings she couldn’t have 
truthfully told whether she was more sorry 
than angry at Florence. It was so like 
Florence to drag in Billy and the fact that 
Winona had come to New York and was 
supporting herself. She wanted to shake her, 
as she sat in her youthful impudence, mocking 
her with her eyes. 

“ I don’t know what you mean about 
Billy,” she said coldly. “ I wasn’t aware of the 
fact that we were thinking of being married.” 
She wanted to add that she would wait for a 
man to ask her before she announced her en¬ 
gagement, but she couldn’t hurt Florence as 
much as that. “ As for coming to New York,” 
she went on, “ you know that I had to support 
myself and I couldn’t do it at home. Be¬ 
sides, my life has nothing to do with you mak¬ 
ing a little fool of yourself.” 

“ I make a fool of myself,” Florence said, 
laughing sneeringly. “ I wouldn’t say that if 
I were you, after the silly way you acted the 
other night, when you were trying to save me. 
I never saw anything so funny.” 

“ I suppose I did make a mistake that 
night,” Winona said. “ But I made my mis¬ 
take in thinking I could make you see anything 
but your side of the question. I thought if 


118 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


you saw your own sister acting in a foolish way 
that you’d have the grace to be ashamed. But 
you only felt terribly superior because you 
knew how to do all those things in an up-to-date 
flapper way as you told us all.” 

“ Why do you bother me then?” Florence 
asked petulantly, and reaching over the side 
of the bed for the big book which had slipped 
off her knees as they had talked. “ I’d really 
much rather be left alone.” 

“ Look here, Florence,” Winona said 
firmly. “ I’m not going to try to beat around 
the bush any longer. The plain truth of it 
is, that we don’t want you to wear yourself out 
over Professor Joyce and his books and things 
because he is married.” 

She waited with held breath for the bomb to 
fall. She expected Florence to cry or deny 
it passionately, but her young sister did none 
of these things. Instead she smiled, and 
opened the book to the place where she had 
been reading. As she spoke, Winona watched 
her and noticed that her hands were as steady 
as they could be as she smoothed out one of 
the leaves which had become mussed when the 
book fell to the floor. 

“ Winona, please go,” Florence said in a 
voice that an elder person might have used to 
a child who was a tale bearer. “ Please don’t 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 119 


think that you are dealing with a baby or a 
fool. Don’t you know I can see through it 
all? Don’t you suppose I know that you and 
mother and father and the others have framed 
it all up between you? Don’t you know that 
it wouldn’t make any difference to me if he was 
married a million times? I’d wait for him to 
marry me if he had to divorce twelve wives to 
do it!” She was out of bed now, standing 
slim and young in her white night gown. She 
walked to the door and held it open for Winona, 
who still sat on the bed watching her in wonder. 

“Please go!” she repeated, and there 
seemed nothing else to do. On the other side 
of the door Winona heard Florence turn the 
key and then heard the bed creak as she got 
back into it. She waited for a few minutes 
to hear if Florence, by any chance, was crying 
to herself, now that she was alone, hut there 
was no sound from the room save a faint whir¬ 
ring which might have been made by rapidly 
turned pages. 


CHAPTER SIX 


The others waited, frankly curious, for 
Winona’s return and when they heard her 
coming slowly down the stairs Louise ran to 
meet her, flinging over her shoulder as she went: 

“ Winnie’s had a bad time of it. I can tell 
by the sound of her steps.” 

A few minutes later she and Winona 
entered the living room together and Tom got 
up from his chair by the fire and placed Winnie 
in it. 

“ It was exactly as you said it would be,” 
Winona said sadly. “ She thought mother and 
father and I had made it up between us to 
separate her from Professor Joyce, and she 
ended up by asking me to leave her alone. I 
had to go, of course, but I waited to hear if she 
would cry when she was alone, and she didn’t.” 

“ Poor kid,” Tom said, giving Winona a 
brotherly pat on her shoulder. “ It is too bad 
you had to go through it but I knew she’d take 
it that way.” 

“What will we do now?” Winona asked 
looking around at them all. 

“ The next step is a pilgrimage to Plain- 
field,” Louise said, “ And I’d be almost will- 


120 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 121 


ing to bet my new gold watch that she won’t 
believe it then. She’ll probably think we all 
hired his wife and the children and the house.” 

Winona joined the others in laughing at 
this, for Florence’s smug attitude about the 
whole thing had not fostered the sympathy she 
had felt for her in the beginning, and although 
she knew that it would probably come back to 
her when the time arrived to go to Plainfield, 
at present the affair seemed humorous. 

They planned to make the trip the follow¬ 
ing Saturday, and the next morning they told 
Florence about it. She took it calmly enough 
but after breakfast, meeting Winona in the 
hall, she stopped her and said. 

“You are going to do right or die, aren’t 
you Winnie?” and laughed in her half scornful 
little way. 

Winona didn’t feel that she could trust 
herself to answer her sister. Several unkind 
answers came to her mind, but she pushed them 
away and said nothing. 

Saturday morning came at last and 
Florence was up early, and went around look¬ 
ing so happy that Winona felt fhe old sym¬ 
pathy coming back. But later when she 
suggested that Florence looked prettier with¬ 
out her hair-net, and Florence had caught her 
up in the unkind way she had of doing, Winona 


122 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


felt an almost irresistible desire to shake her. 

Tom, looking the girls over as he had a 
way of doing and making brotherly remarks 
about their appearance in general, stopped 
Florence as she was about to get into the car 
and said: 

“ Whatever is the matter with you, 
Florence ? You look like a drowned kitten I 
Have you shaved off your hair completely, and 
why the snake dress?” 

But Florence only flounced past him and 
settled herself in the back seat. 

“ I suppose Winnie told you to say that,” 
she said spitefully, “You know that I have a 
liair-net on and this dress makes me look older 
that’s why none of you wanted me to wear it. 
But I’m going to,” she added firmly. 

“ Well if you want to look like a snake- 
charmer’s bride, I don’t suppose it makes any 
difference to me! ” Tom said, “ But if vou 
think you look pretty you’re dead wrong. No 
man likes that slinky type.” 

“ I suppose by men you mean that silly 
Andrew friend of yours,” Florence said hotly. 
“ He’s only a child and so are you. Older men 
are different. They like € snaky ’ types.” 

“ Do they?” Tom asked, with a half whim¬ 
sical smile. “ Well, then I say let them! ” and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 123 

he climbed in next to Louise and no more was 
said on that subject. 

“ Why don’t we start?” Winona asked 
Billy, after they were all settled and Helen and 
Charles, who were not going, had gone back 
into the house and shut the door, and now stood 
waving to them from the window. 

“ Were waiting for something,” Billy 
answered, and just then Andrew turned the 
comer and hurried toward them. 

“ I’m sorry to be late,” he said, flushed and 
breathing hard from his quick walk from the 
subway station. 

“ We’re early,” Billy said kindly, and Tom 
pulled out one of the little seats and moved to 
that, while Louise and Florence made room 
for Andrew between them. 

“ Billy invited me to go,” Andrew ex¬ 
plained to the girls, looking at Florence as he 
spoke, and he added, almost half apologeti¬ 
cally: “ He said you wouldn’t mind.” Florence 
looked at him in her most “ queenly-than-thou ” 
way, and quite squelched him as she intended 
to do. 

“ We’re awfully glad that you came,” 
Louise said heartily, and Andrew smiled thank¬ 
fully at her. 

As they were crossing the ferry at Dyckman 
Street to go to Jersey,Winona looked back at 
the occupants of the rear seat. She noticed 


124 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


for the first time that Florence had the little 
book with her in which she had been writing 
for the Professor. Her face was quite rosy 
and her eyes shining with excitement and 
happiness and Winona had not seen her as gay 
since she had been in New York. She thanked 
her stars that Billy had had the sense to ask 
Andrew to go with them, for he didn’t know 
what was ahead of them and so was able to fit 
in with Florence’s mood. In fact he seemed to 
be enjoying himself immensely and they 
laughed and joked together like old friends. 

They planned to reach Plainfield about 
three in the afternoon, so they stopped in a 
pretty wooded place for luncheon. Andrew 
showed to great advantage in helping to pre¬ 
pare lunch, for he introduced a new way of 
frying the bacon and potatoes which they had 
brought along. 

While the girls unpacked the basket, he 
hunted around until he found a perfectly flat 
stone. This he laid across two piles of smaller 
stones, and then proceeded to build a fire under 
it. Louise came over to him, where he sat blow¬ 
ing with all his might to make the fire start, and 
held out the frying pan to him, but he looked 
up at her and said: 

“ Thanks, but we don’t need it. This is 
a new way I learned last summer when I was 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 125 


camping up in Maine. I think things taste 
lots nicer and I hope you all will,” and he laid 
the pan down and went on blowing. The boys 
collected wood and kept him well supplied, and 
watched him with interest as he fed the roaring 
fire. By and by the stone began to heat and 
finally he put a piece of bacon on it, just as 
he would have put a piece in the frying pan. 
It cooked beautifully and with his fork he 
rubbed the fat of it over the entire stone. He 
did this with several other pieces too, until the 
stone was entirely covered with grease, then he 
took the potatoes, which he had asked Tom to 
peel and cut up for frying, and spread them on 
the stone. Louise had brought tomatoes too, 
and now proceeded to cut them up for cooking. 

Everything smelt beautifully and they 
were so hungry that they could hardly wkit to 
be served properly on the card-board plates 
Winona had put in the basket. 

“ I think there is nothing more heavenly 
than tomatoes,” Louise sighed, eating her 
fourth slice. “ And fried tomatoes eaten in 
the open air this way along with fried potatoes 
is my idea of a lovely picnic lunch.” 

“ Isn’t it clever to have fried potatoes 
instead of the usual baked ones?” she con¬ 
tinued. “ And all we have to do is leave that 
stone. No horrid looking around for sand to 


126 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


scrape the frying pan with. I always hate a 
greasy frying pan. It goes on a picnic in a 
charming frame of mind and comes home 
cross and nasty.” 

The others praised Andrew’s new method 
of out-door cooking too, and he was flushed 
and happy from it all. Even Florence con¬ 
descended to say that she liked things cooked 
better that way. Altogether the luncheon 
hour was a success. 

When at last they got started again, 
Florence began to fret because Billy didn’t 
drive faster. She was anxious to get there and 
the others, with the exception of Andrew who 
was blissfully ignorant of the reason for the 
trip, wished that the road might be twice 
as long. 

As they neared the sleepy outskirt streets 
of the town, Florence became radiantly happy. 
Winona couldn’t bear to look at her, and she 
couldn’t help wondering how Florence was 
going to take it all. She caught Florence 
smoothing down the tight little brown frock 
she wore and pushing her hair up farther than 
ever under her hat. She seemed entirely pleas¬ 
ed with her appearance and wore the air of a 
person who knows that they are going to be 
welcome. It seemed to Winona that it wouldn’t 
be so pathetic if Florence was a different kind 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 127 


of a girl, but her pride was going to have such 
a terrible fall. 

She kept urging Billy to go faster. She 
said she had never known him to go at such a 
snail’s pace. In fact she reminded him that 
Tom and the girls often had to remind him that 
there were speed laws in the north. But Billy 
took it all good-naturedly enough and kept at 
an even rate. 

At last they came to Maine Street and 
drove along looking for the little house. It 
wasn’t hard to find for Winona had a descrip¬ 
tion of it from her father. It sat comfortably 
in its plot of ground and the lilacs and snowball 
bushes were in full bloom now. On the porch 
the professor was sitting with his wife. 
Winona could see that Florence had no eves 
for anyone else but the man and was evidently 
unaware of his woman companion. She was 
clutching the little book tightly and her eyes 
were shining and her cheeks flushed. Andrew 
turning to look at her thought he had never 
seen her so pretty, even the day they had 
walked up Fifth Avenue and she had gone 
without the unbecoming hair-net. 

The professor came down the path to meet 
them, when they stopped at the white gate. 
Florence didn’t wait to be helped out, she 
jumped over herself and ran to meet him, both 


128 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

her hands held out entirely oblivious of the 
other people in the world. 

He took her eager little hands and held 
them for a minute and smiled down into her 
radiant face. He wondered what had kept 
him so blind in the past months. Why he 
hadn’t noticed before, the rapture in her 
brown eyes. 

“ How nice to see you,” he said in cool con¬ 
ventional tones. “Is that your brother 
and sister in the car? I must go to meet them.” 

The coldness in his voice did wdiat it was 
intended to do, dampened Florence’s spirits 
for the time being. She drew her hands away 
and toned to Winona and introduced her to 
the professor. 

He shook hands with the boys, and asked 
them about the trip as they walked together up 
the path to the house. Winona had slipped her 
hand through Florence’s arm as they drew near 
the porch, but Florence rudely shook it off and 
walked alone to where Mrs. Joyce was stand¬ 
ing waiting for them. She wore her more- 
queenly-than-thou look again and Winona 
felt that she couldn’t bear the situation a 
minute longer. She wanted to hide behind the 
others and let them be responsible for the whole 
thing, but she realized that she couldn’t do this. 
She was closer to Florence than any of the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 129 

others, even r lom, and it was up to her to see 
it through. 

If Mrs. Joyce hadn’t been the sweet person 
she was, the afternoon would have been 
impossible to bear, but she jumped into the 
breach whole-heartedly and soon everyone felt 
more or less at their ease. She was particular¬ 
ly nice to Florence and told her how her hus¬ 
band had said Florence was so clever in her 
studies and worked so hard. She completely 
and neatly stripped the romance from any 
thoughts that Florence might be having regard¬ 
ing his interest in her work, however. 

It seemed hours before they finally got 
away. Winona had noticed Florence trying 
to stuff the note book she had kept so diligently 
for the professor, into her hand-bag and see¬ 
ing that it was impossible to do, she drew it 
from Florence’s hands and slipped it into the 
huge pocket of her top-coat. Whenever she 
looked at Andrew she blessed Billy for bring¬ 
ing him along, for he did more to break the 
tension of that spring afternoon than anyone 
seemed to realize. For a long time afterward 
the smell of the lilacs and the odor of new grow¬ 
ing things recalled that afternoon and the small 
white porch and the group of unhappy people 
sitting there. 

It was Florence who finally whispered to 


9 


130 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Winona that it was time they were leaving. 
The sun had almost set and kindly grey shad¬ 
ows hid her face almost from view as she said 
good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Joyce. She had 
managed to keep up a gay bantering conversa¬ 
tion and to the others it seemed more pathetic 
than if she had cried or shown in some way 
how she was being hurt. 

It was only when they were getting into 
the car that she took Winona’s hand and 
whispered to her to sit in the back with her, 
that she showed the slightest bit of emotion. 
Winona gladly did as she asked and Andrew 
took the front seat with Billy. Not until they 
were well out of the town did she speak, then 
she said: 

“ I think I’ll go home tomorrow.” 

Winona didn’t try to dissuade her. She 
only held the limp little gloved hand tightly 
and said nothing. 

But as they neared New York, Florence 
had one of her sudden changes. She sat up, 
straightened her hat, borrowed Louise’s powder 
puff and powdered her nose for the first time 
since she had been in New York. Winona 
still said nothing, but watched her in surprised 
silence. Louise too watched her interestedly 
and said bluntly, “ I think you look lots better 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 131 

without that hair-net. Why don’t you slip 
it off?” 

So Florence took off her little round hat 
and loosened the net and slipped it off as 
Louise suggested. She took the mirror Louise 
held out for her and adjusted her hat at a 
becoming angle and patted two or three little 
twisting curls into place. She looked rather 
disdainfully down at the brown dress and 
gave it a pull here and there to straighten 
the wrinkles. 

When they were going slowly down the 
steep road leading to the ferry, she leaned for¬ 
ward and touched Andrew on the arm. 

“ Let Winona sit in front,” she said, “ and 
you come back here with me.” 

Andrew would have climbed over the back 
of the seat then and there, but Billy told him 
to wait until they got on the boat. 

When they were safely aboard Andrew 
got out and started to help Winona into the 
front seat, but Florence jumped out too, 
and said; 

“ Let’s go up front and watch the lights 
on the New York shore. It s so hot in the car. 

As they walked through the darkness and 
disappeared behind the line of cars in front, 
Louise turned to Winona. 


132 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“How do you really think she feels 
she asked. 

“ I don’t know,” Winona said thought¬ 
fully. “ I can’t tell whether her heart is 
broken or whether she is not minding it at all. 
I wish I knew for it would be so much easier 
to be sympathetic.” 

“ I hope she doesn’t cry herself sick after 
we get home,” Louise went on, but Tom, the 
practical, interrupted her. 

“ She won’t cry herself as sick as we’ll be 
if we sit in these gasoline fumes much longer. 
Come on let’s go watch the lights, too.” 

“ But do let’s go on the back deck to watch 
them!” Louise said as she got out of the car. 
“We old folks can’t spoil love’s young dream 
you know, by going up front with Florence 
and Andrew. Flirting with Andrew is just 
what Florence needs and you can’t flirt with a 
boy under the eyes of older people.” 

The others laughingly agreed to go out 
on the back deck and later Tom asked, “ What 
do you know about the difficulty of flirting 
under older eyes, Louise?” 

It was cold out in the open and Winona 
and Billy stood within the protection of the 
ferry boat’s walls. Louise and Tom however, 
were leaning over the railing watching the 
black water roll under the boat. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 133 

Oh, I know how to flirt!” she answered, 
half teasingly, half in earnest. There were 
times when Tom’s taking-her-for-granted man¬ 
ner rather annoyed her. They had been 
friends for many years it was true, but no 
girl likes to be looked upon as a permanent 
fixture in a man’s life, like a comfortable bath¬ 
tub or the kitchen stove. 

“ I never saw you flirt,” Tom went on. 
“ When do you do it?” 

“ Oh, I have all day long,” Louise 
answered lightly. 

“ That’s right, I suppose you do meet men 
during the day,” Tom said in some surprise. 
“ Somehow I never thought of it before. Show 
me how you do it?” he added. 

“ Gladly,” Louise said laughing, and she 
rolled her wide grey eyes around and around 
until she looked like an animated kewpie doll. 

Tom laughed and took hold of her 
arm affectionately. 

“ If that’s the way you do, I don’t think 
I’ll worry,” he said. “ But I don’t like to 
think of you flirting anyway with other people. 
I think I’ll have to learn to do it myself! ” 
He then proceeded to roll his eyes as she had 
done and they laughed so much over the whole 
thing that Billy and Winona, hearing them 
came over to see what the fun was all about. 


134 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


When they at last got home, Winona hid 
the little book which she had carried in her 
pocket for Florence. As she took it out and 
looked at it, she felt that she would like to 
burn it but she was afraid that Florence might 
be angry at that, so she placed it in her bottom 
bureau drawer under her clothing. 

Nothing was said the next morning about 
Florence’s home-going. Winona ignored the 
subject as Florence did. She seemed to calmly 
settle down to stay until the following Sat¬ 
urday, and she acted exactly as though nothing 
had happened. She never mentioned the pro¬ 
fessor, however, and it became a usual thing for 
Andrew to call her up and take her to tea or to 
lunch. Three times he came home with her for 
dinner and fitted so pleasantly into the life of 
the Little Crooked House that everyone, 
including Florence it seemed, liked him better 
than ever. 

Winona was the only one who had the time 
to go to the station with Florence on Saturday 
morning. Tom was off on a special story for 
his paper and it was one of Louise’s busy 
days at the Garnett House. As they waited 
for the gates to open, for they were early get¬ 
ting to the train, Winona opened the subject 
which had been uppermost in her mind for 
the last week. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 135 


“ Florence dear,” she said, “ You’ve been 
a little brick about the professor. You have 
been so nice about it that it has made us all 
feel much better than we thought we would. 
We were afraid you might hate us for taking 
you there.” 

“ I did at first,” Florence said in her high¬ 
headed young way. 4 4 1 thought you all 
thought you were being noble and doing what 
you considered right. I hate people to do 
terrible things because they think they’re 
right in doing them. It always makes them so 
smug. But when I thought it over I decided 
that I’d like to find out for myself whether he 
was married or not. I rather thought he was 
from things I’ve heard the girls say in school, 
but when you came along that night and told 
me he really was, I didn’t believe it. I thought 
you and mother and father had thought it 
better to tell me that. So I went along with 
you all to Plainfield to see for myself.” 

“Then you weren’t terribly surprised?” 
Winona asked thankfully. 

“ Oh, no,” Florence answered with a little 
upward tilt to her chin. 44 When I first thought 
he might be, I made up my mind what I should 
do. I shall have a long talk with him when he 
returns to school.” 

Winona looked at her in wide-eyed surprise. 


136 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ A long talk?” she said. “ About what, 
for goodness sake?” 

“ About us, of course,” Florence said 
calmly. “I shall tell him exactly how I feel 
in the matter. By the way,” she added, “ will 
you send me that book of mine? I really 
couldn’t show it to him that day before his 
wife, but I know there are some things in it 
that will interest him.” 

The gate opened then, and people started 
going through to the long waiting train. A 
red-capped porter took Florence’s bag and 
she turned to kiss Winona. 

But Winnie sharply took hold of her by 
the arm. She felt that she couldn’t let her go 
this way, thinking, as she doubtlessly did, that 
Professor Joyce was still in love with her. It 
hardly seemed possible that she could be so 
dull as to not realize that he loved his wife and 
children only. 

“ Florence,” Winona said sternly, “ Pro¬ 
fessor Joyce is married. Pie loves his wife and 
children, he doesn’t love you. I know this 
is true. Please trv to believe me.” 

It was one of the hardest things that 
Winona had ever done. But she never flinched 
when she had a duty to perform. Camp Fire 
rules had helped her in this, and now her duty 
seemed to be to make this stubborn little sister 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 137 


of hers see the truth about things. She still 
held her firmly by the arm. 

Florence turned on her angrily, and tried to 
shake off her detaining hand. 

“I’ve seen through it all,” she cried hotly. 
“I’ve seen how you all tried to make me think 
he didn’t love me. I knew you thought I was 
coming to you as a flapper who had to be saved 
from herself. You were surprised when you 
found that I’d been saved already. I told you 
that I knew you planned that trip because you 
wanted to be noble. And you asked that silly 
Andrew boy to go because you thought he’d 
be my own age and amuse me. As though I 
could ever be amused by the silly ragging of 
that baby! When I’ve had real conversations 
with a grown-up man with a mind! I took 
off my net and powdered my nose and went 
out on deck to watch the lights because I 
wanted to watch you smiling and nodding your 
virtuous heads and feeling like saints inside 
of you, because you’d been so smart to bring 
Andrew. I can just hear Billy sa 3 nng, “ He’s 
just the boy to amuse Florence.” Oh, I hated 
you all with all my heart! Why don’t you 
leave me alone, I don’t want to be changed!” 

Winona tried once more to change her 
attitude, but she didn’t feel that she had made 
the slightest dent in the armor of Florence’s 


138 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


conceit. The station man was crying, “ All 
aboard!” for the last time when she finally 
loosened her hold on Florence’s arm and 
watched her run down the concourse followed 
by the porter. Winona waited, thinking per¬ 
haps that Florence would turn at the last 
minute and give her some little sign to show 
that peace was restored, but Florence flounced 
into the train and never looked back. 

Winona went home and cried herself into 
a small-eyed, red-faced rather plain girl. All 
her plans had fallen through. She hadn’t 
been able to help her mother one little bit. 
Florence was just where she started from 
before she came to New York. 

The others were kindly sympathetic and 
inclined to not take it as seriously as 
Winona did. 

“ She’ll have to get over it,” Tom said. 
“ Professor Joyce will tell her himself that he 
doesn’t love her when she goes to have her long 
talk with him.” 

“ I wonder if even he can persuade 
her that she isn’t a home-wrecker?” Louise 
said thoughtfully. 

But a week later a calm letter came 
from Florence. 

“ I hate to be planned about,” she wrote, 
“ as you ought to know by this time. I’m sorry 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 139 


we had that scene at the station for you did 
tiy to make my visit a pleasant one, but I 
wanted you to know that I wasn’t a baby and 
could see through your plans. I don’t know 
whether I thanked you or not for your 
hospitality. I do now, if I didn’t before. 

“ I’ll tell you something that will cheer you 
all, especially Billy, who really tried harder 
than the rest of you to throw us together 
I don’t think Andrew is a baby. He is 
really quite old and has a very good mind when 
you get to know him well. He came up to 
see me, and father and mother liked him and 
he stayed to dinner. As for Professor Joyce, 
I shall keep my friendship for him. I had a 
talk with him as I told you I would and some¬ 
how I didn’t find him as interesting as he had 
been before. He seemed stodgy. 

“ I wish you’d send me the book as I 
asked you. There is something in it that I 
want to show to Andrew. He says I didn’t 
write about that evening we went to see 4 The 
Bat.’ Of course I did, so I want to collect 
the box of candy he bet me that I didn’t. 
Please send it soon.” 

Winona looked at Louise when they 
finished reading the letter together. She had 
gone to her own room to read it and found 


140 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Louise there so she had shared it with her, 
sitting next to her on the window seat. 

“ It’s just been Florence’s stiff-neckedness, 
all the time!” Louise said. “ I believe the 
lesson worked but wasn’t it a hard one to 
teach her?” 

“You’ll never know how hard!” Winona 
said in mock tragic tones of a self-made martyr. 

“ I wish we’d Waited a couple of years to 
be born,” Louise said a little later, reading bits 
of the letter over again. “ The younger gen¬ 
eration is certainly wonderful. Somehow I 
feel that we’ve been cheated out of our birth¬ 
rights when I see them making such capital 
out of theirs.” 

“ The war did something to the children 
who were growing up at that time,” a new 
voice said. It was Tom who had wandered 
into the room attracted by the sound of the 
girls’ voices. 

“ We weren’t so grown up ourselves,” 
Winona said. 

“ But I guess our insides were,” Louise 
said pensively. I know that none of us would 
dare to do the things that some of these Y. G. 
creatures do.” 

“ Y. G. is good,” Tom said, laughingly. 

“ Well, I’m glad that the child has sense,” 
he added later after finishing Florence’s letter, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 141 


which Winona had handed him to read. 
“ Twenty or thirty years ago she would have 
been left to pine alone on the parent stem if 
this had happened to her. Now, she looks 
around and takes the nicest looking boy she 
can find and proceeds in this case, to drown 
her broken pride in his red hair and 
deep dimples.” 

“ Such a poetic soul as yours should make 
money,” Louise said jeeringly. “ Why don’t 
you write some poems?” 

Tom thought a moment then he stood up 
and walked over to the doorway. He leaned 
against the side and recited; 


There was a young lady named Flo 
Who once had a black-headed beau. 

He said “I am married; 

Too long have I tarried.” 

“ I like red hair better!” said Flo. 

“ That’s terrible,” teased Louise. “ I 
could do better than that myself.” 

“ Let’s hear you! ” cried Tom. The three 
of them went down to the living room 
and spent the rest of the evening making up 
limericks, and the prize for the best one was 
a piece of chocolate which Tom found in his 
overcoat pocket, and which he ate up himself! 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


Time passes quickly when you are busy. 
The girls in the midst of the happenings of 
the Garnett Neighborhood House hardly 
realized that it was time for their summer 
vacation. In fact, they hadn’t thought of it 
at all until one day Mr. Collins called Louise 
into his office. She was dressed in her play¬ 
ground costume, which consisted of a white 
middy blouse and a dark blue shirt, and as 
she seated herself by the side of his desk he 
shook his head and smiled. 

“You don’t look as though you needed a 
vacation,” he said. “Does she?” he asked his 
secretary, who swung around in her typewriter 
chair and smiled too, as she looked at the pretty 
color in Louise’s cheeks. It was a blowy June 
day and Louise had been umpiring an excit¬ 
ing base-ball game between the Garnett team 
and a visiting team from another Neighbor¬ 
hood House. She looked very pretty sitting 
there, her grey eyes clear and bright and 
cheeks becomingly flushed. 

“ Vacation?” she asked somewhat dazedly. 
“ Is it really time for one?” 

Mr. Collins laughed. “ I wish all the 

142 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 143 

A. 

workers felt that way,” he said ruefully. 
“ They sometimes seem to only live for 
their vacations.” 

“ Well, I’ll confess that now you have sug¬ 
gested the idea, I rather like it,” she said 
with her frank smile. 

“ If that’s the case I suppose we’U have to 
give you one,” he went on, and looked at the 
vacation schedule for the staff, he had before 
him, on the desk. “ When would you like to 
take it?” 

“If it wouldn’t interfere too much with 
your plans, I’d like to go at the same time 
as Miss Merriam. You see we go up home 
together, but if you would be inconvenienced by 
having us both away at the same time—” 

But Mr. Collins interrupted her. 

“ That’s exactly what Miss Merriam said 
about ten minutes ago. I thought I’d ask 
you too, to see if you wanted to go with her , 
before I made arrangements for you both. 

Louise smiled, for she knew he was teas¬ 
ing her, for the staff of the Garnett House 
knew of the girls’ friendship. In fact they 

were teased about it a great deal. 

“If you could arrange it we’d love it, she 
said and stood up ready to go back to 
the playground. 

“ I’ll see what can be done,” he said kindly, 



144 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and Louise knew that he meant it. But it 
might be that he would not be able to find 
substitutes to take both their places, and she 
was afraid to plan too much. 

But Winona told her the next day, when 
they were having lunch together, in the 
library, that Mr. Collins had told her that 
morning that they could have the month 
of July. 

“ We’ll go home for a while,” said Winona 
contentedly, eating a minced olive and sardine 
sandwich. The girls found it much cheaper 
to bring their lunches with them from the 
Little Crooked House’s larder than to go to 
restaurants for them. 

“ A ou know we said we’d go to that pretty 
village we passed through, the time we went 
furniture hunting with Charles and all of them 
last year, if our families could spare us for 
a week or two during our vacation,” 
Louise said. 

“I’d forgotten all about it,” Winona 
answered. “ But let’s do it, that is if we can. 
I’ll Want to write mother and ask her first 
if she’d mind, before I make any plans. It 
might hurt her if I didn’t spend all my vaca¬ 
tion with her.” 

“ I’ll write home too,” Louise agreed. “It 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 145 


was a darling village with a quaint little old 
hotel where we said we’d like to stop.” 

“ I do remember it,” Winnie replied. 
“ And think of it, Winnie, having a whole 
month to play in! It seems almost too good 
to be true.” 

“ It’s funny, when you think of it, how 
much your mental attitude has to do with 
your physical feelings,” Louise said later. 

“ I didn’t feel that I needed a vacation until 
Mr. Collins told me yesterday that it was 
time for one, and ever since I’ve been like a 
wilted flower and a vacation seems to be the 
only thing that will revive me.” 

That night they talked it over with Tom 
and Charles and Helen. 

Tom, the practical, said: “You’d better 
go to Thorndale first.” 

“ Why?” demanded Louise. 

“ Always save the nicest thing for the 
last,” he said, squinting up his eyes to look 
at her through the dense cloud of blue smoke 
issuing from Charles’ pipe and of which he 
was unsuccessfully trying to make smoke rings. 

“ I see,” Louise said smiling at him. “ It’s 
like saving the vanilla for the last when 
you like it best when you have Neapolitan 
ice-cream.” 

“ Exactly, dear child,” Tom replied. 


10 


146 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ And the nicest part of your vacation will be * 
going home when I’m there. I heard today 
that I could have the last two weeks in July. 
We working men cannot expect more, can 
we? ” he said in an aside to Charles; then turned 
back to the girls. “ I’m planning to 
spend my vacation up home so if you wait 
until then, you’ll have the pleasure of my 
society along with seeing your devoted parents 
and friends too.” 

“ It all depends upon what mother says 
when she answers my letter,” Winona said. 
“If she wants me to spend it all with her, I’ll 
do it.” 

The Lanes and the Merriams probably had 
a conference for both girls received their 
answers the same day and both families told 
them to go anywhere they wanted for the first 
two weeks of July. So they made reserva¬ 
tions at the small hotel they had seen in Thorn- 
dale and then with difficulty settled down to 
wait for The Day, as Winona called it, until 
Tom objected, saying she sounded like a 
small German. So she changed it to 
The First. 

Billy Lee had gone down south again after 
the Easter vacation, but he came north in June, 
and much to everyone’s surprise secured a 
position in a law office and settled down to 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 147 


spend the summer in town. He was to live 
with Tom in the Little Crooked House while 
the girls were away. 

When The First finally came, Billy and 
Tom took the girls down to the station to see 
them off. On their way down the stairs to the 
lower level where they were to get the train 
for Thorndale, a girl brushed by Tom and 
Louise who were walking ahead, and not 
raising her eyes to see where she was going 
walked right into Billy’s arms outstretched 
to protect Winona. 

She threw her head back angrily. As she 
did so Winona saw her face. 

“ Sonia!” she said, and at the word, Louise 
turned and came back to them. 

“ My friend! ” cried the girl, taking both of 
Winona’s hands in hers and holding them 
against her breast. “ My dear, dear friend!” 

It was the same intense Sonia Levitszky, 
but she seemed better groomed than of old, for 
the white collars and cuffs which peeped out 
from the blue serge coat of her suit were spot¬ 
lessly clean, although the serge suit itself was 
badly worn and shiny in spots. 

Sonia Levitszky had been a brilliant little 
Russian Jewess with a wonderful power for 
organization, but no sense of good manners, 
no cleanliness nor self-control. Winona had 


148 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


helped her as much as she could, but Sonia 
had found life hard to live without these things. 
By unobtrusive example and occasional 
bullyings, Winona had done much for her, 
with the result that Sonia loved and respected 
Winnie more than she probably did anyone 
else in the world. 

After greeting the others, she turned and 
paced along with them, still holding firmly to 
Winona’s hand. They had lost track of her 
for a time and now she clung pathetically to 
them. Where were they going? How long 
would they be away? How lucky they were 
to be having a long month together! She was 
working on a newspaper now. Not a large 
daily but a smaller sheet. In fact it was 
named after the part of New York whose 
residents it catered to. She was only working 
there temporarily. Later she expected to get 
on another paper. She told them all this, and 
more, in short jerky sentences. 

Tom asked her what paper she expected to 
get on, but she turned her large eyes to him 
with a look as if he had pierced her to her 
heart with the question, and said: 

“ I cannot tell you yet.” 

“ All right,” he answered shortly. “ I 
happen to be on one myself, that was all, and 
I wondered if I could help you.” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 149 


“ I take help from no one!” she answered 
rudely. “ I have always walked alone and 
I still shall.” 

Winona looked unhappy. She hated to 
have to start bringing Sonia up as soon as she 
met her, but she had been rude. 

“ Sonia,” she said, “ I don’t think that 
was a kind way to answer Tom. He was only 
trying to help you.” 

“ Kindness!” Sonia said tragically. “ I do 
not know it, therefore I cannot practice it for 
others. Who has ever been kind to me but 
you, my friend Winona? ” 

“ Oh, lots of people have tried,” Winnie 
answered. “ The trouble with you, Sonia, is 
that you don’t give them a chance to be nice. 
Look at the way you just answered Tom.” 

Louise walked slowly over to the newsstand 
and Billy followed her. When they were out 
of earshot she turned to him and said: 

“ I never have the patience with Sonia that 
Winnie has. I always want to slap her when 
she reaches this stage of the game. I guess I 
must resent her cool way of monopolizing the 
conversation and taking it for granted that we 
are only waiting with bated breath to hear of 
her silly adventures.” 

“ Sonia seems to have deteriorated,” Billy 
said seriously. 66 She never had any manners, 


150 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


but she was sincere and honest. This Sonia 

« 

seems to be playing to the gallery all the time, 
and doing it rather in a cheap way.” 

Louise sighed with relief. “ It’s a com¬ 
fort to sometimes find a man who sees a girl 
as you do, yourself!” 

“ Winnie certainly has the patience of Job 
sometimes,” Billy said, looking back at the 
group which consisted of Tom who seemed to 
be throwing distress signals to them, and 
Winona and Sonia who had again taken 
Winona’s hands and was pumping them up 
and down, as though she was using them to 
drive in a special point she was explaining. 

“ She’s more of an ‘ I shall ’ than ever,” 
Louise went on, disgustedly watching them 
from afar. “ I shall do this—and I shall do 
that—and did you hear her saying that she 
shall come down to the Garnett House and 
start a school of journalism, as soon as we 
get back? I didn’t hear even Winnie being 
particularly enthusiastic over that idea, but 
that won’t make any difference to Sonia. 
She’ll be down there just the same, and in a 
month or two she’ll have a little band of 
Bolshevics all trained to throw bombs all over 
our nice new Neighborhood House we’ve just 
had painted!” 

Billy laughed. 



WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 151 


“ Cheer up!” he said, “ Don’t jump over the 
moon until you come to it. Lots can happen 
in a month and especially if you work on a 
paper like Sonia. Maybe she’ll be arrested 
and carefully put in jail before we see 
her again.” 

“No such luck!” she said half laughing, 
“ And for goodness sake, whatever is she 
doing now?” 

Billy looked as Louise directed. Sonia was 
leaning on Winona’s arm, but looking up into 
Tom’s face with an expression that Louise had 
never seen before. 

“ Gosh! I think she’s vamping old Tom!” 
Billy said uttering a long whistle under 
his breath. 

“ I think she’s perfectly silly,” Louise 
said angrily. 

“ I think Tom’s liking it,” Billy said steal¬ 
ing a look at Louise from the comer of his 
eye to see how she would take his ragging. 

Winona, looking all around, caught their 
eyes just then, and sent them a save-me-if-you- 
can-look. They went immediately over to her 
and Billy picked up her bag. 

“ We’ll have to hurry,” Louise said, tak¬ 
ing Winona’s arm and hurrying her along. 
“ Perhaps we’d better say goodbye here, Sonia, 
for it is almost time the train left and you 


152 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


might get caught on it if you came aboard. 
The boys could jump off alright.” 

Sonia frowned as she loosened her hold on 
Winnie’s arm. 

“ Louise doesn’t seem to want me,” she 
said sadly.” 

“ As usual, making an insult out of every¬ 
thing anyone says that isn’t about her 
cleverness.” Louise muttered under her 
breath, dropping Winona’s arm too, and 
walking ahead. 

Winona stood still looking quite distressed. 

“ Please don’t make everything so hard, 
Sonia,” she said “ Louise wants you to come, 
of course, but it would be tragic if you got 
left on the train.” 

But Sonia decided that she had been 
wounded, so it took the combined efforts of 
Winona and Tom and Billy to appease her. 
Louise walked ahead, entirely aloof, and refus¬ 
ing to have a hand in bringing her around. 

The train was almost ready to pull out 
when they finally boarded it and they had to 
climb on any old way and dump their bags 
down. The boys jumped off and Louise and 
Winona stood on the rear platform and waved 
to them until they were out of sight. 

The last glimpse they had of Sonia, she 
was standing between the boys holding an arm 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 153 


of each and looking, as Louise said, anything 
but sorry that she was being left alone 
with them. 

“ I don’t like that girl,” said Louise the 
downright, turning away to enter the car. 
“ I think she’s too silly for words and she’s so 
sensitive that I can’t get along with her. 
We’re never able to talk for five minutes with¬ 
out tears on her part and thoughts of murder 
and sudden death, on mine.” 

“ She lias got an unfortunate disposition,” 
Winona agreed, “ but think how uncomfort¬ 
able she must feel inside of herself; and what 
a hard time she has had.” 

“ She doesn’t seem to mind what the boys 
say to her,” Louise said stoutly. “ It’s only 
what I say that seems to set her off.” 

“ Look at the way she jumped at Tom,” 
Winnie went on. “ He was only trying to 
help her and she was awfully rude.” 

“ She seemed to be looking upon him as a 
deliverer, the last view I had of her,” Louise 

said very crossly for her. 

“ She was telling us all about the troubles 
she’s been having lately,” Winona explained. 
“Her mother is very ill. She has something 
very serious the matter with her and may die 
any minute. And Sonia thinks she may have 
to leave the paper she’s working on, because 


154 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


the man who owns it, or whatever they do with 
a small paper like that—is trying to make love 
to her.” 

“Fiddle dee dee!” Louise said somewhat 
rudely. “ I bet she told you that story before 
Tom. I know that type of girl so well. They 
are always having perfectly terrible times with 
men, wherever they go. You and I are never 
troubled that way Winnie, and we are certain¬ 
ly prettier than Sonia, at least you are.” 

Winona couldn’t help laughing. Disgust 
was so plainly registered by Louise’s little tip- 
tilted nose, that it seemed turned up more 
than ever. 

“ Well goodness knows,” she said, hoping 
to change the subject that seemed to be bother¬ 
ing Louise so much. 

“ I try to vamp people,” Louise continued. 
“ I’ve rolled my eyes at Roger and Billy and 
Tom in turn and all they ever do is howl. Of 
course I don’t mind Tom howling, he’s liable 
to do anything, but for Roger to do it and 
Billy, who is supposed to have the charming 
Harvard manner along with his William and 
Mary one, I think it is a shame. I believe I’ll 
try it on someone new.” 

“ Mr. Collins, for instance,” Winona sug¬ 
gested demurely, dearly loving a joke and see¬ 
ing that Louise was trying to turn the course of 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 155 


conversation away from Sonia. They both 
laughed at this, for Mr. Collins would have 
probably howled as loud and long as the boys 
themselves if Louise had tried it on him. 

The laugh made them feel better and they 
settled themselves comfortably in the chair car 
with magazines and books which Billy had 
bought for them. It was a five hour trip on 
the train to the nearest railroad town to Thorn- 
dale and from the station they were to take an 
automobile to Thorndale, a distance of about 
eighteen miles. 

The country was lovely and once on their 
way, leaving the crowded streets of uptown 
New York behind them, they soon came to the 
pretty Westchester County towns. For miles, 
on either side of the track were walls and walls 
of pale pink and deep red cottage roses. 

“ I should love to come home to a station 
like that one,” Louise said enthusiastically, 
pointing to a particularly pretty rustic one 
which they were passing. “ Wasn’t it a clever 
thought of someone to plant all those roses, or 
do you think they’ve grown wild?” 

Winona didn’t know, but she thought it 
was a happy idea, whether they were cultivated 
or wild. After a while Louise leaned back in 
her chair and simply sat with her hands folded, 


156 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


looking at the pretty pictures the windows 
framed but making no effort to see more. 

“ I hadn’t any idea how nice it is to just 
sit,” she said to Winona who looked up from 
her book to smile at her. “ I’m so tired of 
playing with children, swinging them and 
teaching them to be sporting in games and not 
take it out on the visiting combatants, if they 
should happen to lose. Sometimes I feel that 
I’ll never be able to talk to a really grown-up 
person again, and I’m sure if I played golf or 
tennis with Billy or Tom I’d be watching them 
every minute and holding myself ready to 
spring on them if they crowed over me.” 

Winona put down her book and leaned her 
head back. 

“ I know how you feel exactly,” she said. 
“ Sometimes the library children used to worry 
me to death. It is so hard to have to always 
watch the moral effect of everything you do or 
say to them. There have been times, and lo be 
it spoken, when I’ve wished I could let them 
pick up a book and fling it at their little friends’ 
heads, or wet their little fingers so that they 
could turn the pages more easily. It’s a won¬ 
der they didn’t hate me sometimes.” 

“Hate you!” Louise said, “they adored 
the ground you walked on, poor babies.” 

It was after they returned from luncheon 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 157 


in the diner that Louise took out her time-table 
and began to count the stations they 
would pass through before they came to the 
one they wanted. 

Suddenly she dropped the time-table in her 
lap and looked across at Winona with wide- 
opened eyes of excitement. 

“ Winnie!” she said. “ Something has just 
occurred to me! You’ll die when I tell you.” 

“ Hurry up!” Winnie cried impatiently. 

“ We liever opened that locked box we 
found the time we were looking for old furni¬ 
ture with Charles and Helen!” 

“Louise!” Winnie cried in her turn. 
“How perfectly stupid of us! And we always 
wished that we could find a perfectly good 
secret something or other, and the very first 
one we found we forgot all about! But what¬ 
ever made you think of it now? ” 

“ I guess it was because my mind was rest¬ 
ing,” Louise tried to explain. “ I don’t know 
how it happened. I was reading the time-table 
and I began to think of Thorndale and the last 
time we went through it in the car with the 
funny piece of the Vernis-Martin cabinet 
sticking out of the back of the car, and then I 
remembered you and how you rode all the 
way with something on your lap, and at first 
I couldn’t remember what it was you held and 


158 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


then all of a sudden it came to me. It was the 
old locked box which you insisted upon 
carrying yourself.” 

“ Oh, Louise,” said Winona. “ I wish we 
could turn right around and go back and get it. 
But I think I know why we didn’t open it. 
Charles took it away from me that night when 
we got home and I was so tired the next day 
that I forgot to ask him about it, and then 
Billy came along with his invitation to go south 
for Christmas and Roger wanting a companion 
for his mother and we all being so busy with 
the Little Crooked House, and I had to make 
so many decisions as to what was the best 
to do....” 

“ You don’t have to make any excuses to 
me! ” Louise said, half laughing. “ I, at least, 
might have remembered it, for I didn’t have 
two boys wanting companions for their mothers 
in the worst way, when the mothers had per¬ 
fectly good daughters of their own, because the 
boys wanted me in their homes and couldn’t 
get me there any other way! ” 

“ Oh, hush!” Winona said coloring 
prettily. “ You’ve all teased me enough about 
that! One of these days I’ll go over to Eng¬ 
land or down south just to show you all. 
And I’ll be such a charming companion to 
Lady Mendon that a duke or a count or a 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 159 


marquis will want to marry me and when I go 
riding in my presentation robes in a golden 
coach like Cinderella’s you’ll be glad to know 
me, and you’ll wish that you had come with me, 
as I’ll be asking you to do if I ever go myself,” 
she ended up irreverently. 

“ And Roger and Billy Lee will be sitting 
around with broken hearts and long faces and 
wanting me to sympathize with them,” Louise 
continued teasingly. 

“ I don’t know about that!” Winona said, 
“ Perhaps Sonia will console them.” 

“That’s right,” Louise said with a little 
frown. “ We left that Bolshevic with our 
unsuspecting males, didn’t we?” 

“ And they seemed to be having a good time 
and enjoying it,” Winona went on. 

“ I don’t think she had to hold Tom’s arm 
as tightly as she was doing,” Louise said. 

“ Nor Billy’s either,” laughed Winona. 

“ Laugh, my young friend,” Louise said 
in mock tragic tones. “ But remember that 
Louise Lane told you that girl will bring grief 
and danger into your life.” 

“ Since when have you developed this new 
power of reading the future?” Winona 
inquired. “If the worse comes to the worst 
and we lose our money we’ll dress you up as 
a gypsy and get you a tent and you can tell 


160 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

fortunes for two dollars a head or a heart or 
whatever you like.” 

44 Very well, proud lady,” went on Louise. 
44 But remember the gypsy’s warning!’ 

Winona began to giggle and they kept up 
their bantering until suddenly the train gave 
a tremendous jerk and then stopped all togeth¬ 
er and Louise and Winona, after picking up 
the books which had fallen from their laps, 
looked around anxiously to see if anything had 
happened. But a stout white-haired conductor 
sat placidly in the last seat of the car, counting 
the pink and white and blue tickets he had 
collected and seeming to be entirely unaware 
of the past jolt. He looked so comfortable 
sitting there that the girls felt reassured and 
looked at one another and laughed. 

The train began to crawl along again and 
an anxious little woman sitting across the aisle, 
and sharing her chair with a little girl and a 
baby asked Louise if everything was all right 
now. Winona, at the sound of a stranger’s 
voice, swung her chair around and discovered 
that the little girl, who was only a size larger 
than the baby in the woman’s arms, was hold¬ 
ing one tiny thumb very tightly and trying 
her best to keep from crying. 

In a second Winona had leaned across and 
had taken the child on her lap. She examined 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 161 

the thumb which she found to be bruised by 
the fall the little girl had had when the train 
had stopped so suddenly. It was badly swollen 
and discolored. 

The little woman almost cried when she 
saw it. Just then the haby began to really 
cry and she tried to console it. Winona 
smiled reassuringly at her. 

“ I’ll fix it,” she said, “ don’t worry about 
it.” and she took the little girl into the dress¬ 
ing-room at the end of the train and held the 
small thumb under the ice-water tap for a few 
minutes, then she took out a bottle of peroxide 
which she used for her nails, and made a neat 
little wet bandage of her hankerchief which 
she tore up for the purpose. 

All the time that she had been doing this 
the little girl never cried. She eyed Winona 
with her big brown eyes and watched every¬ 
thing she did with the deepest interest. She 
evidently decided that here was a friend, for 
she seemed to give herself entirely into 

Winnie’s safe keeping. 

When they went back to the car she 
showed the woman the wet bandage and then 
came over and sat on Winnie’s lap. Louise 
had, in the meanwhile, persuaded the oldest 
child, a boy who had had a chair to himself, to 
come over to her and now she was sharing hei 

r 

11 


162 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


seat with him and showing him pictures in one 
of the magazines. 

The little woman leaned comfortably back 
in her chair and seemed to be resting for the 
first time on her trip. Once or twice she smiled 
across at the girls. 

Winona, in her best story teller manner, 
began the story of Cinderella. The little girl 
whose name was Matilda, looked up at her 
solemnly when she was finished, thanked her 
politely and said: 

“ My father tells us that stoiy. I wish 
my father was here now! ” And for the first 
time since she had hurt herself she began to 
cry, soft little baby sobs that shook her tiny 
body from head to foot. 

“ Please don’t darling,” Winona whispered, 
“ Look sweetheart, you are making John feel 
badly too, and if you do that it will make your 
mother unhappy and she is so tired.” 

Matilda tried to check her sobs and Winona 
kept her chair swung around to the window 
so that the woman across the aisle knew noth¬ 
ing of what was going on. The noise of the 
train drowned any sound. 

After a little, Matilda sat up and said in 
her quaint little way: 

“ That isn’t my mother. I’m going to see 
my mother. That’s Annie, and that’s Annie’s 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 163 

baby. She comes for us when its time for us 
to leave father and go live with mother again. 
I wish I could stay with them both, all the 
time. My mother is pretty. She’s all black 
and red and white like Snowwhite in the fairy 
tale. My father tells me that story too.” 

“ Poor little baby,” Winona thought, hug¬ 
ging Matilda very closely. “ I wish some¬ 
thing could be done.” 

The colored porter came through the train 
collecting baggage and Louise leaned over and 
told Winnie that the next stop was theirs. 
They had barely time to go into the dressing 
room and adjust their hats before the train 
stopped and they had to hurry out. As they 
went down the platform looking for a car to 
take them to Thorndale they saw the children 
and the little woman with the baby hurrying 
along in front of them. 

“ I wonder if their mother will meet them?” 
Louise said, for John had told her the story 
also. “ Perhaps we’ll be able to see her.” 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


In the excitement of getting an automo¬ 
bile to take them and their baggage to Thorn- 
dale, they forgot, for the moment, all about 
looking for the children and their mother. 
But after they were settled in the back of a 
very dilapidated Ford, whose owner promised 
to take them the eighteen miles for five dollars, 
they looked around and found that in the car 
parked next to theirs was John and Matilda 
and Annie with her baby. They were evidently 
waiting for someone. It wasn’t a hired car, 
that was plain to be seen. It was as well 
groomed looking as a lovely woman, and a 
chauffeur w r as sitting at the wheel. 

Winona turned her head to look across the 
Main Street to a line of two-story buildings 
which seemed to hold the principal stores of 
the town. There was a butcher and a baker, 
but instead of a candle-stick maker, a blue 
sign with white lettering Western Union 
office. As she looked, a woman came out of 
the telegraph office and across the street to 
the car where Matilda and John were waiting. 

She was a lovely woman to look at, tall and 
graceful and red and white and black, exactly 

164 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 165 


like Snowwhite in the fairy tale. Matilda had 
been right in her description of her mother. 
And she seemed so glad to see the children. 
They clung to her and she fussed anxiously 
over Matilda’s thumb, just as the girls thought 
that she ought to do, she bundled them all back 
into the car and dropped a kiss upon the tiny 
wrinkled face of Annie’s baby. 

As she was about to tell the chauffeur that 
they were ready to start, Matilda recognized 
the girls, still sitting in the hack of the Ford 
waiting for their driver to collect the mail and 
do some errands for the people who lived out 
Thorndalc way. She pointed a fat little finger 
at Winona and told her mother all about her 
thumb, and what Winnie had done for it, and 
how she had even told her fairy tales. John, 
not to be outdone and see his friend Louise 
neglected, joined his voice with Matilda’s in 
admiration of the girls. 

“ Snowwhite” got out of her car and came 
over to them. 

“ My name is Alice Whitney,” she said. 
“ Thank you so much for taking care of my 
babies. You seem to have won their deepest 
love and respect.” She smiJed at the girls 
whimsically, as she spoke. 

“They are darlings!” Louise said impul¬ 
sively. 


166 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Mrs. Whitney smiled again. “ They are 
dears,” she said, and added, “ The children 
and I are living in a house about three miles 
the other side of Thorndale. If you are ever 
lonely, though I don’t suppose you will be 
with one another, I’d be delighted to have you 
come out and be lonely with me. I am very 
often that way.” 

“ We’d love to come,” Winnie said with 
her friendly smile, and added, “Though we 
probably won’t be lonely. We’ll have a lot to 
do in the two weeks we’re going to be here. 
You see we’re only on a vacation.” 

“ Well, come, anyway,” Mrs. Whitney said 
lightly. “ Please don’t forget all about John 
and Matilda and me. We shall be waiting to 
see you again.” 

The owner of the Ford had by this time 
tied all the parcels on all the imaginable places 
on the front of the car, and had climbed into 
his place behind the wheel. Mrs. Wliitney 
said goodbye and went back to her own car 
and the last the girls saw of her and the chil¬ 
dren, the three of them were looking through 
the glass window in the rear and waving 
to them. 

“ Isn’t it nice to have a friend here 
already?” Louise said. 

“And she’s a darling too,” Winona said 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 167 

enthusiastically. “ I don’t see how a man could 
ever possibly leave her and those children.” 

“ I don’t either,” Louise agreed, in a com¬ 
fortable way she had, and added, “ I don’t 
feel as much like a twin Columbus as I did 
when I first started. I wonder if he was as 
glad to make friends with the first Indians?” 

But Winnie didn’t answer her. She was 
too busy holding on to the side of the car, for 
the little Ford seemed to be standing on its 
nose, so steep was the hill down which it 

was going. 

“ This is the life in the great mountains 1” 
Louise said clutching at her hat and brae 
ing herself. 

But when they got to the bottom, the road 
ran along smoothly for a way. On one side 
was a river, a regular story-book river that 
wound in among the trees like a silver ribbon. 
The water seemed to be as smooth as the 
proverbial mill-pond, and only a floating leaf 
or a skating water-bug broke the surface of it. 

It was about three o’clock when the girls, in 
the rattling little Ford, came to the outskirts of 
the village of Thorndale. A long, slow climb, 
brought them to the top of the hill and here 
the driver stopped and turned to the girls in 

the rear seat, pointing below. 

In the valley at the Ford’s rubber-tired 


168 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


feet was a village. Little white houses, look¬ 
ing as though they had been taken out of a 
child’s play box and dropped anywhere, were 
scattered about in a radius of a mile and a 
half. Two white church steeples stood proudly 
taller than the surrounding buildings, their 
slender points vieing with the trees. 

44 There’s Thorndale” said the driver 
proudly. “ Ain’t she a pretty place?” 

The girls said indeed it was, and then with 
a whirl and a sudden start which made the girls 
make frantic clutches at their hats, the Ford 
coasted down the steep road. 

44 1 can’t balance my hat any longer,” 
Louise said, taking it off. 44 The natives may 
as well get used to seeing me without it now, 
as any time, and beside they won’t have any 
comparison to go by, if they never see how 
much better I look with it on.” She braced 
her feet against the front seat and said, 44 Now 
I can enjoy this triumphant entry in peace and 
happiness.” And with nothing more to bother 
her, she leaned back and looked from side to 
side, turning her head so swiftly that Winona 
declared it made her dizzy and begged her 
to stop. 

It was truly a triumphal entry, for the 
driver of the Ford blew his horn loudly and 
long, and the Ford, as if in answer to his Mas- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 169 


ter’s voice, rattled and banged louder than ever. 
They passed a church yard, quiet and sleepy; 
a white school house, so exactly like a school 
house in motion pictures that Winona and 
Louise looked at one another and smiled. 

“ Where is the beautiful teacher standing 
in the doorway with a group of frizzled hair 
youngsters around her?” Louise asked in a 
stage whisper. 

“ Perhaps its lunch time and she’ll be 
around the next bend, with the oldest boy in 
the class,” Winona whispered back. 

“ School had been closed for a long time,” 
said the driver, not looking back at all, but 
evidently an interested listener to everything 
they said. Louise looked at Winnie and raised 
her eyebrows. After that they kept quiet until 
they came to the hotel. 

It was a long low building, the main wing 
dating back to the early fifties. On either 
side and at the back additional wings had been 
built. The girls liked the woman who came 
down to meet them. She was small and wiry 
and her eyes, though black and beady as a 
bird’s were kind. She wore a neat print dress 
and her brown hair was screwed up into a 
little knot at the back of her head. In spite of 
the tightness a few curls grew prettily at the 
back of her neck and on her forehead. 


170 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


They followed her through a low ceiling 
living room and down a narrow dark hall. 
Here they stopped while the woman knocked 
on a closed door at the right hand side of the 
passage. A deep gruff voice answered the 
knock and the girls drew back. It was a 
frightening voice. The door opened and a 
loosely built big man came out. The light was 
behind him and his face in shadow, so it wasn’t 
until he had carried the bags up and deposited 
them upon the floor in the room they were to 
share together, that they saw his face. He 
was one of the meekest looking people they 
had ever seen. Blue eyes, overshadowed by 
brows that should have belonged to a bully of 
a man, looked out shyly upon the world. His 
features were finely moulded and he was good- 
looking as so many of the farmers in New 
York state are. And when Winnie thanked 
him for unbuckling a particularly hard buckle, 
he smiled the sweetest, little boy smile that she 
had ever seen. She liked him on the spot. 

When he left them, the woman proprietor 
still lingered. She smoothed out imaginary 
wrinkles in the snow-white counterpanes, and 
flicked imaginary flecks of dust away from the 
spotless table. The room was immaculate, and 
the two large beds looked comfortable and 
refreshing in their white covers. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 171 


“ Wouldn’t Charles and Helen eat those 
beds if they saw them?” Winona asked, going 
over to the bureau and removing her hat. 

“Wouldn’t they!” Louise said. “Well, 
I’m certainly glad they can’t see them tonight 
for they’d try to buy them right out from 
under us, and they do look so comfortable that 
I’d like to sleep in one tonight anyway.” 

The two beds were beauties. One, a 
massive wooden affair had an elaborately 
carved head-board. The other was an old 
boat-bed. A heavily carved bureau matched 
the larger one. It looked so solid standing on 
its short fat legs that it seemed hardly possible 
that someone had ever been strong enough to 
move it into the room. It seemed as if a work¬ 
man had come to the room every day for years 
and built and carved it where it now stood. 

“ What a lovely set it is,” Winona said to 
Miss Latimer, who by now, being thoroughly 
satisfied that the girls had enough towels, that 
there were really no wrinkles or dust anywhere, 
was walking toward the door. 

She stopped, and smiled at Winnie as she 

answered. 

“ Those two pieces were part of the set 
that was made for my great aunt when she 
was married. I’m glad you like them. Some 


172 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


folks think they’re heavy and ugly but my 
sister and I think they’re right handsome.” 

“ They are beautiful,” Winona said enthu¬ 
siastically, rubbing her hand over the heavy 
carving on the frame of the mirror. 

Miss Latimer smiled again and turned 
to go. 

“ Supper’s at six,” she said, “ And the 
dining room is right at the foot of the stairs.” 

Louise went out to look up the bathroom 
and came back with the news that it was the 
most modern bathroom she’d ever seen and 
that she was going immediately to take a bath. 
There were heaps of snowy thick towels she 
said; and she left Winnie to unpack her bag 
and get things straightened while she waited 
her turn. 

It was a delightful surprise to find a bath¬ 
room so beautifully fitted, in such an old 
house, and the girls felt rested and refreshed 
after their baths, when at six o’clock they went 
down to the low-ceilinged dining room, for 
their supper. 

The next morning they started out to 
explore the country. They found one delight¬ 
ful road leading to the river and they walked 
slowly along, fully enjoying the feeling of 
absolutely having nothing to do but amuse 
themselves for two weeks. As they turned a 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 173 


somewhat sharp corner they came upon a little 
house and they both stopped short to look at it. 

“ It’s exactly like the house Peter, Peter, 
Pumpkin-eater built for his wife when he 
found he couldn’t keep her!” cried Louise. 

It was round and yellow and quite like a 
pumpkin shell. There was something about 
the little square window panes and the old 
worn door-sill that stamped it at once as hav¬ 
ing been somebody’s home, and a very nice 
home at that. There had doubtlessly been 
hollyhocks in the garden and tall sunflowers 
had grown against the western wall. There 
were traces of them still growing bravely 
among the choking weeds. There was a rag¬ 
gedy rose-bush over the front porch, a tiny 
square porch, hardly big enough to hold any¬ 
thing but one person at a time. 

The rose-bush seemed to be trying its best 
to hide the fact that one of the porch pillars 
needed to be repaired badly. Panes of glass 
were out of some of the square little windows, 
but instead of giving the old house a dilapi¬ 
dated look, the black holes looked only like 
dark colored eye-glasses which had been put 
on to keep out the glare of the sun. Indeed it 
seemed to be as jolly and happy a little house 
as could be found anywhere. 

“I think it is empty; what a shame!” 


174 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Louise said. “ I’m going to see if I can 
look inside.” 

She walked up the little flagged front walk 
and up onto the tiny porch and tried to peep 
into the hallway through the dust-covered 
panes of the side lights in the front door. 

“ I can’t see anything,” she called back to 
Winona who stood in the roadway. “ Come 
and see if you can.” 

Winona came dutifully up as she was 
asked, but couldn’t see anything either, so they 
went around to the side of the house and 
looked into what probably had been the family 
living room. 

“ Why there’s an old man in there!” Louise 
whispered and they took another look. 

The old man was sitting in the only chair 
the room contained. There was a lovely old 
grand piano in one corner however, and two 
bookcases filled to overflowing with brown- 
backed books. 

“ Perhaps we’d better go,” Winnie said, 
backing softly away from the window. 

“I’d like to talk to him,” Louise said, tak¬ 
ing another look before following her friend. 
“ He looks so sad and lonely.” 

“ I think we’d better ask about him before 
we do anything like that,” Winnie said with her 
usual common sense. And Louise agreed. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 175 

They were sitting around the white china 
shaded lamp which stood in the middle of the 
parlor table, that evening when Louise intro¬ 
duced the subject of the old man. 

Miss Latimer brought her embroidery 
which she did beautifully, and sat with them 
after the supper dishes were cleared away. 
The rest of the boarders; (there were one or 
two married couples with children), were out 
taking their usual evening walk. The girls had 
noticed that they were the kind of people who 
want to get the greatest benefit possible from 
their vacations and therefore live on a schedule 
of walks, and mountain climbing and seeing 
the “ sights,” as they called the lovely scenery. 

“It’s a wonder their bones and muscles 
don’t sit right down and say they won’t go 
another step,” Louise said to Winnie, as they 
stood in the doorway earlier in the evening, 
watching the departure of the strenuous ones. 
“ If they told their poor stiff muscles what 
violent exercise they were going to give them, I 
bet they’d flatly refuse to start at all from their 
comfortable homes in the great cities, where 
the greatest exertion they know is a walk to 

the subway or to market.” 

“ I’m afraid they thought we were rude 

because we didn’t join them when they asked 
us,” Winona said doubtfully. “ But I’m so 


176 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

glad of a chance to rest after running up and 
down stairs all day long in the Garnett House 
that I simply couldn’t go out again tonight. 

‘ “ I’d much rather stay with Miss Latimer, 

anyway,” Louise said with her usual frankness. 

So they went back into the cosily lighted 
parlor and sewed and rocked and were happy 
while they listened to Miss Latimer’s stories, 
as she sewed and rocked too, in a true story 
teller’s way. 

“ I guess you mean old Mr. Van Horne,” 
she said in answer to Louise’s question con¬ 
cerning the man they had seen that morning 
in the sparsely furnished house. “ He’s been 
here with us for about eight years now and he’s 
just about on his last legs, I’m afraid. We all 
take turns doing for him in the winter. Last 
winter Mrs. Layton had him into Sunday 
supper every week. He’s a good eater, let me 
tell you, as old as he is!” 

Winona almost said that he didn’t look as 
though he was one of the village people, but 
she caught herself in time. Miss Latimer like 
others in the village, was quick to take offense 
if she thought anyone was criticizing the villa¬ 
gers. She loved a bit of gossip as well as the 
next one, but gossip indulged in by the villa¬ 
gers themselves was only considered news, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 177 


while the same thing discussed by strangers 
became slander and scandal. 

“He was a city man,” she said after a little 
while, looking at the girls over the top of her 
iron rimmed glasses. “ His folks were coun¬ 
try people, however. They lived over two 
towns from here. They owned a lot of prop¬ 
erty in these parts at one time. When his 
father was a young man he went down to the 
city and married a city girl and Mr. Van 
Home was their only child. They brought 
him up here a couple of summers and he came 
to love our country. So when he grew up him¬ 
self, he used to bring his wife and his son up 
here. They were as handsome a family as 
you’d find anywhere. But his wife died and he 
took to drink, lost everything he had except 
a small amount of money his wife had left 
directly to her son. That went to educate the 
the boy and he’s studying medicine now, out 
West. The father came up here to live after 
the smash!” 

“ Why doesn’t the son do something for 
his father?” Louise asked indignantly. She 
hadn’t been able to forget the old man bent 
over his book, reading, as she had seen him 
that morning. 

“ Mr. Van Horne wouldn’t tell his son if 
he was dying,” Miss Latimer went on. “We 

12 


178 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


folks often thought we ought to write to him 
and tell him, and once the Woman’s Aid 
decided to do it. But the old man got wind of 
it from somewhere and came in and broke up 
the meeting. It was the first time we ever saw 
him lose his temper and I can tell you I hope 
it is the last.” 

“ Does he get any money from his son?” 
asked Louise. She recalled the scant furnish¬ 
ing of the living room and the idea came to 
her that it was from selling the pieces of fur¬ 
niture that he received money. 

“ I think so,” Miss Latimer answered, but 
somewhat doubtfully. “We kind of like to 
help him out now and then,” she went on, her 
kind middle-aged face bent over her work. 
“ Some of us have bought pieces of furniture, 
and right nice things he has too.” 

“ I thought as much,” Louise said under 
her breath. 

The other boarders returned just then and 
asked Louise to play for them while they took 
up the rag rugs and danced for an hour as a fit¬ 
ting crown to a vacation day, so this conver¬ 
sation ceased. 

The next morning, armed with books, and 
a rug apiece, Winona and Louise went to a 
pine grove, which they had discovered the 
afternoon before, Louise spread out her rug 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 179 

flat on the ground and lay on her back, her 
arms under her head, and looked up through 
the interlacing pine boughs to the summer sky, 
where little white clouds, looking as though 
they were smoke from some giant’s pipe, were 
peacefully and slowly blowing along. Winona 
tried to drape her rug around a tree trunk so 
that she could sit up and read, and lean 
against the trunk, but it proved unsuccessful 
and she had given it up and now sat with her 
book and embroidery, which she had also 
brought along, spread out around her, looking 
anything but comfortable. 

“ I wish I could find a comfortable place 
to sit,” she said looking around to see if she 
could by chance find a rock to rest against. 
But, although there were rocks they were not 
the right height for comfort and she got up 
and walked off a little way to see if she could 
find anything better. Louise, lying there and 
thinking of the old man, suddenly heard 
Winona’s voice in conversation with someone. 
Whoever she was talking to managed to keep 
their voices very low for Louise could not 
catch any answers to the questions which 
Winona apparently was asking. 

She sat up and looked all around. Still 
she could not see Winona and her companion, 
for they were hidden by a slight uprise in the 


180 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


land behind the clump of trees under which 
she had been lying. She knew if she stood up 
she could see them, but she felt too lazy to make 
the effort, and so sat idly turning the pages 
of her book and wishing Winnie would hurry 
back and tell her who this new friend was. 

“ Perhaps it is some of the boarders who 
have followed us here and want us to climb 
Blue Head,” she said, sighing at the thought 
of a steep climb, and again, more deeply still, 
at the thought of the exertion they would have 
to expend to keep up a conventional flow of 
talk about the beauties of Nature as they 
climbed. She wished she could bury her head 
like an ostrich, and mentally prayed that 
Winnie would head them off, if it were indeed 
people with climbing intentions. 

“ Here they come,” she sighed, looking 
desperately around for a place to hide, and 
then, realizing that she couldn’t forsake her 
friend, settling down again. The voices were 
coming nearer and she could now distinguish 
the deeper notes of a man’s voice. So it was a 
man Winnie was talking to. That wasn’t so 
bad, for they weren’t as insistent as women 
she thought, and now she glanced over her 
shoulder to where they were coming toward 
her over the brown bed of crushed and fra¬ 
grant pine needles. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 181 


It was old Mr. Van Horne to whom Winnie 
was talking so earnestly and as they neared her 
Louise stood up. 

“ This is my friend, Miss Lane,” Winona 
said, introducing Louise who put out her hand 
in her friendly way. 

Mr. Van Horne took it and smiled at her. 
In spite of his years, and the hard times he 
undoubtedly had been having lately, he seemed 
much younger than he had been when they 
saw him through the window, and his grey 
tweed suit, although rather shabby, was well 
cut and very well brushed and mended. 

“ Miss Merriam tells me that you are 
spending two weeks with us here in Thorn- 
dale,” he said kindly. “ I think that you will 
find it a delightful spot and the people delight¬ 
ful too.” 

“ We love the people themselves,” Louise 
answered. “ But to tell the truth, we have been 
trying to hide from the boarders.” And she 
described them so thoroughly that Mr. Van 
Horne laughed heartily. 

“ I know that kind well,” he said. “ They 
seem to come year after year. The first few 
summers I was up here I didn’t know quite 
how to handle them, to get away from them 
without seeming to be very rude. I am very 
fond of fishing and they used to come in droves 


182 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and stand along the bank and watch me. I 
found it very annoying, for as wide as the 
river is, it wasn’t wide enough to get away 
from their prying eyes. And finally I decided 
I could stand it no longer.” 

“ What did you do?” Louise asked, her 
grey eyes twinkling. “ Please tell us, per¬ 
haps we can do the same thing, if you 
wouldn’t mind.” 

“ I wouldn’t mind,” the old man answered 
dryly. “ But I doubt if you could do it! I 
used to pretend that I was dumb. Now, there 
is no fun in watching a dumb fisherman. If 
you can’t ask him how his luck is, and how 
the fishes are running, and what kind of bait 
he uses, and how much the fishes weigh, there’s 
nothing to just standing and watching him 
sit silently in a boat, perhaps for an hour, 
without a bite. So they got so that they left 
me alone. And the villagers although they 
knew better, never told on me.” 

“ Well,” admitted Louise, half laughing. 
“It does seem like a drastic thing to have to 
do. I’m sure I’d forget and talk. Thank 
you very much for telling us, however, I’m 
afraid we’ll have to think of some way of 
our own.” 

“ I was afraid you would,” Mr. Van 
Home said. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 183 


He offered to show the girls a still more 
delightful and comfortable spot than the pine 
grove, and helped to carry their books and 
rugs. He led them across a brook and up a 
rather steep incline. As they reached the top 
and looked down they discovered that at their 
feet was a dell, a fairy dell taken bodily out 
of a fairy tale. 

After he saw them comfortably settled he 
left them to enjoy it by themselves, which 
they immediately began to do. Winona found 
at once the rock she had been looking for, and 
draped her rug around it and settled down. 
Louise again spread her rug and lay, as 
before, with her arms under her head, looking 
up at the sky. 

Suddenly she sat up and said: “ Isn’t he 
a dear!” 

“ I’d like to shake that good-for-nothing 
son! 

“ But if he doesn’t know anything about 
it because his father doesn’t tell him, you can’t 
blame him so much,” Winnie said, puckering 
her eyebrows in thought. She could almost 
always see the other person’s side of anything, 
far too well, she sometimes said. 

“ I should think if he had any kindness, 
he’d come over to see his father,” Louise went 
on, paying no heed to her friend and still 


184 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

denouncing the son. “ Or if he’d ask his father 
to visit him,” she added. 

But Winona usually so sympathetic, some¬ 
how couldn’t bring herself to blame the 
son entirely. 

“ I wish we could think of something to 
do about it,” she said reflectively. “ Perhaps 
if we try we will be able to find a plan.” 

They sat for a while longer then Louise 
looking at her wrist watch declared that if 
they wanted any lunch they’d have to run all 
the way home. They picked up their things 
and ran and arrived just as the other boarders, 
tired and hot looking, dragged themselves into 
the dining room. 

Louise and Winona kept the secret of 
their fairy dell from everyone but Miss 
Latimer, who said she remembered it well. 
Indeed she added that it had been a favorite 
play place of her childhood and told the girls 
where they would find a natural spring. 

That afternoon Winona took her traveling 
writing desk and went out under an apple tree 
which stood on a side lawn. She wrote a 
lengthy letter to Tom and a shorter one to her 
mother. Later she walked down the yellow 
dusty road and dropped them into the box just 
in time to catch the four o’clock stage. 

Four days later she walked down to the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 185 


post-office again, but this time she received a 
fat letter which she read as she walked along, 
and smiled to herself as she did so. When 
she got back to the house she asked Miss 
Latimer if she had seen Louise anywhere 
around, and was told that she had gone out 
about half an hour before saying she was 
going for a walk along the river road. So 
Winnie, still clasping the fat letter, turned 
her steps to the river road and soon came to 
the pumpkin house. She had been amusing 
herself as she walked along by tracing Louise’s 
foot-steps in the soft yellow dust and now 
she was surprised to find them leading to the 
front door. She still followed them and 
knocked at the door which was standing 
half open. 

Mr. Van Horne’s voice told her to come in 
and she pushed the door wide and stepped 
through. She found herself in a square hall 
and opening off it on the left hand side she 
saw a doorway leading to a long low living 
room, evidently the one through whose win¬ 
dows she and Louise had first seen Mr. Van 
Horne. His voice had come from that 
direction so she walked across and stood in 
the doorway. 


CHAPTER NINE 


Mr. Van Horne rose from the only chair 
the room possessed and came toward her. 

“You young things are being very kind 
to me,” he said as he bade her welcome and 
offered her the chair. She glanced around as 
she went over to sit down and discovered 
Louise sitting on an upturned box before the 
piano, which she had opened and was trying 
out. She was so engrossed in her soft play¬ 
ing that it was evident she did not know that 
someone had come into the room and Winona 
smiled and shook her head at the old man, who 
would have spoken to Louise to tell her of 
• Winnie’s arrival. 

“ May we go out on the porch ?” Winnie said 
after a bit. “It is quite lovely and the sun 
shines so prettily through the green lattice 
there and makes such nice shadows on 
the floor.” 

“I’m glad you like the way those shadows 
fall,” he said, as they seated themselves on one 
of the wooden built-in benches. “ My wife 
was very fond of them too.” 

It was the first time he had ever mentioned 
his family to the girls and Winona wished he 

186 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 187 


would tell her more, and especially something 
about his son. But he didn’t and they sat in 
silence listening to the soft little things Louise 
was playing on the old piano. In spite of it 
being out of tune, its tone was rich and mellow 
and Winnie knew that Louise was enjoy¬ 
ing herself. 

They must have sat there, quietly listening, 
for an hour or more and finally Winnie reluc¬ 
tantly stood up and said: 

“ I’m afraid I’ll have to call Louise, for 
it’s time we went home.” 

“ I wish that I could tell you both how 


much I have enjoyed having you here,” Mr. 
Van Horne said as he shook hands with them 
and then stood looking down on them as he 
stood on the upper step of the little porch. 

“ I’ve never played such a lovely piano,” 
Louise said. “ I enjoyed it, so much.” 

“You must come often then,” he said 
smiling delightedly at her praise. “You’ll 
always find the door on the latch, even if I 
am not here. If it really gives you pleasure 
I will be glad to have you play it. 

She thanked him and they turned to go. 

Out of sight of the little cottage, Winona 
drew from her hag the letter she had received 
from Tom and handed it to Louise, who 
eagerly read it through. Then she read a 


188 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


yellow telegram which had also been enclosed 
in the envelope. This said: 

“Remember you perfectly. Glad to hear 
from you. Train arrives at 5:10 Friday.” It 
was signed: 

“ John Van Horne ” 

“ But I don’t understand it at all!” Louise 
said opening her grey eyes very wide in won¬ 
der and looking attentively at the telegram 
again, as if hoping to find the solution of the 
puzzle there. “ Here is Tom’s letter saying 
he did what you asked him to do and that he 
and Billy and John Van Horne will be up in 
the car Saturday. But when and how did 
Tom get to be friends with Mr. Van Home’s 
son John?” 

“ Don’t you remember,” explained Winona 
her eyes sparkling with the excitement of it 
all and the delight of watching Louise’s sur¬ 
prise. “ Don’t you remember that Tom went 
out West last winter to get a special article 
about some Medical College? When he got 
back he told me he had met an awfully nice 
man who had helped him a lot to get the stuff 
he needed. Well, I remembered that when 
we came up here, and heard about Mr. Van 
Horne’s son, and I remembered that Tom had 
said the man’s name was John Van Horne and 
I knew that they had corresponded ever since. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 189 

So I wrote to Tom and told him everything 
and he telegraphed the son and is bringing 
him up with Billy Lee, Saturday.” 

“ Oh, let me sit down to get all this!” cried 
Louise going over to the side of the road and 
sinking down on a mossy stone. “ Winnie,” 
she asked, looking up at her friend with an 
exaggerated air of deep respect, “ tell me, was 
there ever a famous detective who was an 
ancestor of yours?” 

Winnie laughingly shook her head. 

“ None that I ever heard of,” she answered 
lightly. “ But come on,” she continued, giving 
Louise her hand to help her up from the stone, 
“ we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.” 

Louise obediently got up and took 
Winnie’s arm affectionately as they walked 
along. 

“Really you are a wonder!” she said. 
“And won’t Mr. Van Home be surprised?” 

“ That’s just it,” Winona said with a 
slight frown. I’m afraid he may be too sur¬ 
prised. And one thing that worries me horri¬ 
bly is that bare house of his. Whatever will 
the son say when he finds it that way? ” 

“ Serve him good and right! ” Louise said 
bluntly. “It may do him good to find his 
father being so brave about the whole thing 
and it may make him ashamed of himself!” 


190 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


But Winnie only shook her head thought¬ 
fully and said nothing. 

“ Do you know what I’m planning to do?” 
Louise went on. “ I found out this morning 
that Miss Brown, the music teacher up here, 
wants to go away for a week. She hasn’t been 
able to find anyone to take her pupils so when 
Miss Dingman told me about it, I went over 
to see her and offered to take the children. And 
then I had my brilliant scheme. I’d take her 
pupils without any charge, if she would 
promise me that she would tell their parents 
they ought to practice on Mr. Van Horne’s 
Steinway piano.” 

“ But some of them have pianos of their 
own,” Winnie objected, “ What about them?” 

“ Oh, I found out that most of them did 
their practicing at Miss Brown’s house,” 
Louise explained. “ Most of them haven’t 
pianos, and what they want to learn to play 
for I can’t tell you. The main thing is that 
they do; so instead of going to Miss Brown’s 
they are to pay for the privilege on Mr. Van 
Horne’s. That will make a nice little sum for 
him. Miss Brown has twenty pupils and she 
said she thought that even the families of the 
ones who own pianos will pay to have them 
practice out of the house. I know my mother 
and family would have taken up a collection 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 191 


gladly to pay for me practicing down the other 
end of the village!” 

“That’s fine!” Winnie said enthusiasti¬ 
cally. 

“I’m going to get Jimmie Burroughs to 
tune it for me,” Louise went on. Jimmie 
Burroughs was the man of all trades in Thorn- 
dale. He could do everything and where or 
when he learned how, no one could ever tell, 
for he had never been known to leave Thorn- 
dale even over night. 

The next day when the girls went to the 
little brown house with Jimmie Burroughs, 
they found the door on the latch as Mr. Van 
Horne said it would be, but he was nowhere 
in sight. 

For more than an hour Jimmie tinkered 
with the piano but finally he straighened up 
and came out to the girls where they were sit¬ 
ting on the steps of the porch talking. 

“All done,” he said shortly. “Want to 

try it?” 

Louise immediately got up and went back 
with him into the house while Winnie sat and 
listened. Tuned, its notes sounded as soft and 
brilliant as ever. Louise played something 
over and Winnie sitting listening happily, 
began to idly think of how lovely the place 
must have been when the Van Hornes had lived 


192 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


there as a family. Perhaps the son had learned 
to walk out there under the apple trees; and 
she recalled a picture of Mrs. Van Horne hang¬ 
ing in the living room, and thought how pretty 
she must have looked, with her bright golden 
hair and large brown eyes, against the delicate 
coloring of the lilac bushes. 

So wrapt up was she in her dreams that she 
was rather startled when Louise and Burroughs 
came out. The three of them walked back 
together and evidently Louise and Jimmie 
Burroughs had been talking about Mr. Van 
Horne, for they took up their conversation, 
after they had called Winona, just where they 
had stopped it. 

It was the son they were talking about, and 
it was evident that he had a very strong per¬ 
sonality; for although Jimmie hadn’t seen him 
for ten years he distinctly remembered every 
thing he had said and done the last summer he 
had spent in Thorndale. 

“ But from all you told me he must be a nice 
boy!” Louise said in surprise, after he had 
finished the long accounting. 

“He’s a darn nice boy!” Jimmie said 
emphatically. “ Where did you ever get the 
idea that he wasn’t? If his father wasn’t such 
an old fool, and for his pride’s sake won’t tell 
the son that he’s up against it, people wouldn’t 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 193 


criticize John the way they do. I say it’s the 
old man who isn’t the nice one in the family!” 

“ But at least the son ought to come and 
see his father!” Louise said indignantly. 
“ That would be only natural.” 

“ Had he?” Jimmie asked sarcastically. 

“ Ho you think the old man writes from here? 
He does not! He sends his letters down to 
Philadelphia and New York to be posted by 
friends. I know. How is the son to know how 
the old man is fixed, when he thinks he’s travel¬ 
ing back and forth between New York and 
Philadelphia? He’s no mind reader!” 

The girls were glad to part with him when 
they got to his little shop in the village. He 
was too emphatic in his judgment of the old 
man. Even Winnie agreed to that. 

They discovered that they were earlier than 
they had realized for supper, so they sat down 
on the porch, Winnie in the swing and Louise 
in a very rocky rocker which threatened to 
tip over backwards with her and consequently 
added a thrill to the general pleasure of rocking. 

“ Whatever are you thinking about, 
Winnie?” demanded Louise after she had 
rocked silently for five minutes and had watch¬ 
ed her friend’s preoccupied face interestedly. 

“ Well, it’s about that almost empty house,” 
Winona said smoothing out the wrinkle 


13 


194 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


between her eyes and evidently glad to think 
her thoughts aloud. “ I was just wondering 
if we couldn’t get some of the old furniture 
back, borrow it I mean, (for we’d never have 
money enough to buy it,) and dress up the 
house for the son’s visit. We could easily get 
everything back safely.” 

“ But how about mussing up the people’s 
houses that we borrowed the furniture from?” 
asked Louise practically. “ If they bought 
the things they evidently Wanted and needed 
them. We couldn’t very well borrow a bed out 
from under a sleeping family, could we? Or a 
highboy or bureau either for that matter, for 
what would they do with the contents of the 
drawers? No I’m afraid this is one plan of 
yours that we won’t be able to carry through. 
There always has to be a first time for every¬ 
thing!” she added by way of consolation. 

But Winnie wasn’t to be turned from her 
plan as easily as that. She shook her head 
determinately. 

“It’s got to be, that’s all!” she said firmly 
and Louise sighed tragically and rocked very 
hard for a time. After a while she said in a 
mock humble voice: 

“ Very well, dear, if you say it can be done 
I guess it can be! And if you’d accept my 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 195 


little help, I’d gladly offer it to you to do with 
what you like.” 

“ Thank you very much,” Winnie said 
smiling across at her friend. “ I do accept and 
I still say that somehow, someway, I’ll get 
that furniture!” 

“ I don’t think Mr. Coue, himself, had any¬ 
thing on you when it comes to suggesting things 
to himself,” Louise said, half teasingly, half in 
admiration of her friend’s determination. “ I 
think you could give him some new ideas on 
the subject for I’ve never seen anyone who 
could pick things out of the blue of the sky as 
cleverly as you do, and with as little effort.” 

“ I don’t know anything about that!” 
Winona said somewhat impatiently. “ I only 
know I can’t bear not to be able to put over a 
plan. The higher the things in the way to its 
completion, the more I am determined that 
it can be done!” 

“ I know,” Louise said, affecting to sigh. 
“ Well, I know! Nothing ever stands in your 
way. And now, even the thought of people 
putting themselves or their innocent children 
or guests to sleep on a cold draughty floor, 
stirs no feeling of compassion in your breast.” 

“ Don’t be silly, Louise,” Winona said 
with dignity. “ If you are going to take 


196 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

that ragging attitude I won’t bother you with 
my plans.” 

“ I’m sorry!” cried Louise contritely, bring¬ 
ing her chair to a stop and running over to 
the swing to kiss Winnie. “ I didn t mean a 
word of it. You have the kindest heart in the 
world and you’d probably bring home all the 
family and the guests too and give them your 
bed! Please tell me some more!” 

Winona couldn’t help laughing too, and 
Louise sank down next to her in the swing, pre¬ 
pared to listen attentively. 

“ Well, it is this way. ...” Winnie began, 
but she was interrupted by a shadow falling 
'across their faces and they looked up to see the 
postmaster standing before them holding out 
two letters, one for each of them. 

“ I thought I’d drop by with these,” he 
said in explanation. “ I live right down the 
road a piece and these came in the last mail so 
I thought you might want them.” 

“Thank you,” Winnie said sweetly and then 
seeing that he evidently wanted to stop for a 
chat, for he leaned heavily against the porch 
post and pushed his no-color felt hat back on 
his head while he took out a handkerchief and 
wiped his face, asked him if he would 
sit down. 

“ Thanks, I will,” he said dropping heavily 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 197 


to the top step of the porch. The girls knew 
that he was a confirmed gossip, so they settled 
down to listen to the latest story of the happen¬ 
ings of Thomdale. But Winnie managed to 
steal a glance at her letter and found it was 
from Helen. She looked at it longingly, but 
tucked it away to be read later. 

The postmaster was a kind man. His 
gossip was never vicious, only entertaining, and 
the girls found themselves enjoying it. After 
his story, which was about one of the summer 
boarders, was told he put on his hat, which he 
had laid beside him on the porch, and 
made a movement as though he was about 
to leave them. 

Winona put out a detaining hand and said: 

“ Could you tell us something about Mr. 
Van Horne? We are very much interested in 
him and we feel also rather sorry for him.” 

The man ran a pale pink tongue over his 
pale pink lips as though in anticipation of 
something nice to happen, and settled himself 
comfortably again on the top step. 

“ It’s a long story,” he began, “ I’m not 
just sure where to begin.” 

He kept silent for a time as though he was 
rearranging his thoughts then he said: 

“ It must be eighteen or nineteen years ago 
that I saw him for the first time. I can re- 


198 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


member it perfectly. We used to have a stage¬ 
coach in those days that brought the people 
over from the train at Longport. It was about 
four o’clock in the afternoon and I was sitting 
just about where I am now. This hotel was 
the best of its kind in those days and the stage 
always drove right up to this door. If you 
were going to stay at the hotel you were all 
right, but if you weren’t, you were out of luck 
for it meant you had to walk to wherever you 
were going and drag your bag along too. We 
used to kind of gather around to see the stage 
come in, in those days. I remember this par¬ 
ticular day very well. The stage drew up with 
a flourish, Andy Jones who drove it always was 
a sort of a show off fellow, and there in the 
back sat Mr. and Mrs. Van Horne and their 
son. The kid was about eight years old, I 
should say, and one of the friendliest young¬ 
sters I ever saw. And Mrs. Van Horne! She 
was a beauty. After I saw her I kind of for¬ 
gave Andy Jones for showing off. I thought 
I might have done it myself! Come to think 
of it, we Thorndale folks liked the Van Homes 
the first time we laid eyes on them.” 

And so he went on with his story, while the 
girls listened attentively. He must have 
talked for twenty minutes without stopping, 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 199 

when he suddenly hesitated, stopped short and 
started once more to get up. 

“My wife’ll give me particular fits!” he 
said half smiling, half in earnest, as he picked 
up his hat. “ She’ll know I’ve been gossiping 
and she can’t abide it!” 

“It wasn’t gossiping!” the girls cried to¬ 
gether. “ It was thrillingly interesting. You 
could just make us see everything.” 

He flushed with pleasure and said rather 
bashfully that he didn’t get such a good 
audience every day. 

“ There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” 
Louise said. “ Miss Latimer told us the other 
night that his people came from around here. 
His father married a city girl and that was 
how Mr. Van Horne was born in New York. 
Do you know where his people came from?” 

“ Why yes,” he answered. “ I remember 
him telling me they came from Hillcrest.” 

Winnie sat up very straight. 

“ Are you sure it was Hillcrest?” she asked, 
as though she could hardly believe her ears. 

“ Quite sure,” the postmaster said and 
added, naturally enough: “ Why do you ask? 

“ It sounds so familiar!” she said thought¬ 
fully knitting her brows and turning to Louise. 
Then she suddenly cried. 


200 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“I know! Its the furniture village! I 
knew I remembered that name.” 

The man stood looking at her in bewilder¬ 
ment. Louise turned to him and explained. 

“ We went up there last year with her 
brother and some friends to look for old furni¬ 
ture. We found the best of the things in the 
Manor House which is now turned into a store 
and a post-office.” 

The postmaster interrupted her. 

“ The Manor House,” he said excitedly. 
“ That was the Van Horne’s place. I remem¬ 
ber hearing him tell some city folks about it 
one day.” 

The girls looked at one another in astonish¬ 
ment. Suddenly it came to them both. 

“ I remember,” Winona cried excitedly. 

The proprietor told us that there had been 
a ‘ vandoo ’ when the last of the Van Hornes 
moved out and sold the Manor House and 
moved away. And it was down in the cellar 
that we found the old blistered board which 
Charles said was the missing part of the 
Vernis-Martin cabinet and the frame that 
Helen has now, hanging over her highboy 
with a mirror in it. And the box. We found 
the locked box there too!” 

“ What locked box?” the man asked, look- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 201 


ing from one girl to the other as though they 
had suddenly gone mad. 

Louise laughed at his perplexed expression 
and tried to explain. 

“ We haven’t gone crazy,” she assured him, 
“ There is really a locked box, we found it 
down in the cellar of the Van Home house along 
with the things Miss Merriam just named. 
But we’ve never had a chance to open it. In 
fact we only remembered about it after we got 
on the train and I began to read the names of 
the stations we had to pass through and dis¬ 
covered Hillerest among them and the trip we 
made last year came back to me and I re¬ 
membered the box.” 

“ Do you think our Mr. Van Home is of 
the Van Horne Manor House family?” 
Winnie asked, her eyes flashing with excite¬ 
ment and her cheeks pink. 

“ I reckon so,” the postmaster said, now al¬ 
most as excited as the girls. <c When are you 
going to get a chance to open that box? Think 
of it,” he said as though to himself, “ having a 
locked box that you forgot to open.” 

“ I know!” Winnie said half apologetically. 
“ It does seem like a terribly stupid thing to 
do but we really were too busy.” 

But the postmaster only shook his head as 
though it wasn’t a natural thing to be that busy. 


202 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ And if you’ll pardon me a minute,” 
Winona went on, “ I’ll read my letter and tell 
you when we expect to open the box for I 
wrote to my friend to ask her to send it up by 
my brother when he comes next week.” 

She tore open Helen’s letter as she spoke. 

“ It’s coming up with them this Saturday,” 
she said still flushed from excitement. “ Oh, 
do you think that there might be anything in 
it that would be of value to Mr. Van Horne?” 

“ Seems hardly possible,” the postmaster 
said scratching his head as he spoke. “ If 
there’s anything of value around it isn’t 
generally put down in a cellar, even in a 
locked box.” 

Winnie’s face fell but soon brightened 
again. She turned to Louise and said. 

“ I’m going to tell Mr. Thornton all of my 
plans and see what he thinks of them,” and she 
then proceeded to outline briefly all that she 
and Louise were wanting to do for Mr. Van 
Horne. “ It’s the empty house, that worries 
me,” she ended up by saying. 

As she talked the postmaster had listened 
attentively and when she finished he took out 
his handkerchief and ran it over his face. 

“ Golly!” was his only comment and then 
again, “ Golly!” 

They sat silently for a time, Winnie’s 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 203 


spirits a little fallen from the reception her 
story had received. She had expected the post¬ 
master to show as keen interest as he had done 
in the locked box. 

Suddenly he leaned forward and took her 
hands. 

“ Little girl,” he said, “ I think you’re a 
wonder. And if I know the people in this 
town, you’ll have every one of them behind you. 
You leave the carting of the furniture to me. 
I’ve got a horse in my barn that’s simply eat¬ 
ing her head off. She’s as gentle as they make 
them and if you two girls want to drive her 
around while you ask the neighbors to lend you 
the furniture, I’ll be glad to let you have her.” 

“Thank you!” cried the girls in unison, 
while Winnie added rather shyly, “ Then you 
do think it is a good plan? ” 

“I think it’s immense!” he said heartily. 
“It was so immense when you first told me 
about it that it seemed to take my breath 
away! But we’ll do it, don’t you worry!” 

“ Bless you for that! ” Louise said half¬ 
laughing. “ I’m sure we’re going to be able 
to refurnish the whole house from top to toe!” 

“ Most of us only bought the stuff to help 
Mr. Van Horne,” Mr. Thornton went on. 
“ I know I did myself. We’ll start with Miss 
Latimer and me. I’ve got a corner cupboard 


204 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and a couple of chairs. She’s got a bed or two 
and a bureau.” 

He went in with the girls and they found 
Miss Latimer in her own little room just off 
the kitchen. It was a small sitting room but it 
was bright with flowers and books and there 
was a canary in a golden cage. 

* 

It didn’t take them long to tell Miss 
Latimer all about it. 

“I’m sure we can borrow some of the 
things,” she said and added, “ What we can’t 
borrow we’ll fill in with some of my stuff. By 
the way,” and she looked doubtfully at the 
girls, “ one of the beds that belongs to Mr. Van 
Home is in the room your brother and his 
friend were to have this week-end.” 

The girls looked at one another and 
laughed. 

“ I think we’re both having the same 

thought,” Louise said, gayly, “ and that is 

that we’ll let the bovs have our room and not 

%/ 

tell them anything about it and Winnie and 
I’ll camp on the floor on mattresses. It won’t 
be the first time, and we’ll enjoy ourselves, 
never fear!” 

“ Well it’s up to you,” Miss Latimer said 
sensibly. “ Come now and we’ll go look at some 
others things that are in the attic. No time 
like the present!” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 205 


She led the way, a small glass lamp in her 
hand, to the long low garret which was the 
entire top floor of the old house. Neatly piled 
in one corner they found the furniture belong¬ 
ing to Mr. Van Horne. 

“You can take it away tomorrow,” Miss 
Latimer said, “ That is if you want to.” 

They thanked her and trooped back to the 
sitting room and after awhile the postmaster left 
them, promising to bring the horse and car¬ 
riage around early the next morning. 

That evening they spent in making out a 
list of the people Miss Latimer knew had 
bought furniture. 

“ We’d better write down how to get there 
too,” Louise declared practically. 

It was a sleepy but very happy Winona 
who kissed her friend goodnight. 

“ Aren’t there lots of nice people in the 
world?” she asked, blinking at the black square 
of the open window through which she could 
see a patch of star-filled purple sky. 

“There certainly are!” agreed Louise, 
blowing out the lamp and getting into the 
creaking wooden bed. “Lots of them!” 


CHAPTER TEN 


The Saturday which was to bring Billy 
and Tom and young Dr. Van Horne, was a 
grey cloudy day. 

Louise, with her nose pressed against the 
window, trying to see farther than the chicken 
coop in the back yard, finally turned to 
Winona. 

“If it would only make up its mind what 
it is going to do!” she sighed. “ This way is 
much worse than if it really poured and lots 
more depressing.” 

“ It certainly is,” Winnie said tragically, 
running over to look out at the heavy mist too. 
“ And it will take the boys ever so much longer 
to get here if it rains.” 

“ Yes, and Mr. Van Home may return be¬ 
fore we are ready for him,” Louise added. 

Mr. Van Horne had been taken on a camp¬ 
ing trip by a friend of the postmaster’s, who 
had been allowed in on the secret, but they 
were expecting his return that afternoon in 
time for tea, which the girls were planning to 
serve at the Van Horne house. 

They had worked hard, the girls and Miss 
Latimer and the postmaster, and the little 

206 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 207 


pumpkin house was furnished as nearly like 
it had been when Mr. Van Horne’s son had 
left it. Now, everything seemed in readiness 
for a happy ending of their plan, except 
the weather. 

“ I’m sure something will happen to spoil 
things,” cried Winnie, who generally wasn’t a 
pessimistic person. “Just look at those fat 
ugly clouds of mist,’’ and she pointed at some 
particularly heavy ones which seemed to roll 
up like the waves of the ocean and break them¬ 
selves on the glass before the girls’ faces. 

“ Come away from the window,” Miss 
Latimer called cheerfully. “Watched clouds 
never boil. That’s wrong, but you know what 
I mean,” she said putting a large plate of flap- 
jacks on the table before the girls and then 
going over to lay an affectionate arm on 
Louise’s shoulder. She had a way of mixing 
her proverbs, which generally amused the girls. 
“ I’ve seen lots worse clouds than those roll 
away about ten o’clock and leave behind them 
as pretty a day as you want to see.” 

“ Oh do you think they will?” Winnie 
asked hopefully, her naturally good spirits 
coming to the top again with a bound. 

“ I’m not promising,” Miss Latimer said 
shaking her head, and going out to the kitchen 
to bring in maple syrup and two steaming cups 


208 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


of coffee. The girls were having breakfast 
with her in her own little room because it 
seemed a sort of a holiday. 

They sat down, and the coffee and flap- 
jacks seemed to cheer them, for it was in her 
own gay manner that Winnie dropped a light 
kiss on Miss Latimer’s cheek before she ran 
out to join Louise who was waiting for her in 
the postmaster’s little carriage. 

The little horse’s sleek back was wet and 
shiny from the heavy mist and it was difficult 
to see before them as they drove slowly along. 

“ Everything looks so nice,” Winnie said 
contentedly, leaning comfortably back and 
letting the reins hang loosely, knowing that 
the little horse knew the way better than 
she did. 

“ It does,” Louise agreed, “ except that 
one bare place in the son’s room where the 
highboy should be. Even now, when I think 
of that dreadful Mrs. Van Duesen, I want to 
kill her.” 

“ But she was the onlv one who was horrid,” 

%/ 

Winnie said reflectively. 

“ Well, she was enough for me!” Louise 
said. “ I’ll never forget her!” 

The girls had taken turns asking the people 
for their furniture and it had been Louise’s 
turn to interview Mrs. Van Duesen. To be- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 209 

gin with, on the day they drove to her house, 
the little horse hadn’t seemed to want to take 
them there at all. Generally a patient, polite 
little beast, he had absolutely balked when they 
had tried to turn him into Mrs. Van Duesen’s 
roadway. So Louise had gotten out some dis¬ 
tance from the house and left Winnie to amuse 
herself for, as she thought, fifteen or twenty 
minutes. Everybody else they had asked had 
kept them that long, talking and showing kind 
interest in their plan. But Louise was only 
gone five minutes at the most, and Winona 
hadn’t settled herself comfortably to read her 
book, which she had brought along for the 
purpose, when she looked up and saw her 
friend flying down the front path and heard 
the resounding slam of the front door be¬ 
hind her. 

“Drive on I” Louise had commanded as 
she climbed in and took the seat beside Winona, 
and knowing her friend very well, Winona had 
said nothing but had driven on as directed. 
They had gone almost a mile before she had 
heard Louise utter a long sigh and relax. 

The little horse in the meanwhile had been 
ambling along as if he knew something was 
wrong, but with the breeze from Louise s sigh 
blowing his shaggy mane, he picked up his 
spirits and trotted at a great rate for him. 

14 


210 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Once or twice he looked back over his shoulder 
as much as to say, “ How’s that? It 
ought to make you feel better! ” And once he 
looked so far around that Louise broke into a 
nervous laugh. 

“ I know he’s saying in horse language, 
that he told us not to go there!” she had said 
almost tearfully. “ And oh, how I wish I’d 
listened to him. Winnie, it was perfectly 
dreadful. You have no idea how that woman’s 
mind worked. When I asked her if I could 
talk to her for a few minutes she said I could, 
that she’d been waiting for us to come and talk 
to her because she wanted to tell us something. 
And then she went on to say that we were en¬ 
couraging the old man to be a beggar and to 
deceive his son, and that she wasn’t going to 
help us do it, not even if everybody else in 
Thorndale had been taken in by us. She said 
she’d paid good money for that highboy and 
she wasn’t going to lend her furniture like a 
traveling library book. If she once started it 
there would be no end of people coming to 
borrow everything, from the bed out from 
under her, to the best silver teaspoons!” 

“ I think she is perfectly horrid!” Winnie 
had cried indignantly, and then added sympa¬ 
thetically, “ But don’t you care, Louise. We’ll 
get something else to fill that place and they 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 211 


may never notice. And I’ll go to see the rest 
of the people today for your experience counts 
as a whole day’s work.” 

But they had not been able to find anything 
to take the place of the highboy and although 
they hung a picture up in the bare wall space 
and pushed a chair and table closer together 
to try and fill in the lower part, it still didn’t 
look right. 

Suddenly out of the veils of mist before 
them came a motor car, slowing nosing its way 
along. The little horse of its owti accord drew 
the carriage over to the side of the road, for 
the two girls had been too engrossed in their 
thoughts to notice the machine. Then finding 
that the horse had stopped and was eating the 
foliage at the side of the road while it waited, 
Louise looked around to find out the reason 
for it doing so. # She saw the motor car and 
after a hasty glance, turned back to Winnie 
and their talk. It startled them to hear some¬ 
one calling them by name. 

At first they didn’t recognize the closely 
veiled figure in the rear seat of the car but 
when two little dumpling figures waved 
joyously to them, Winnie gave a cry 
of recognition. 

“ Matilda and John! ” And the two little 


212 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


children almost fell over the side trying to get 
to the pony-cart. 

Mrs. Whitney smiled at the girls and told 
the chauffeur to stop, then opened the door so 
that the children could scramble out. She 
got out after them and came over to the girls. 

“We were afraid you had forgotten us!” 
she said. 

“ It wasn’t because we had forgotten you 
that we didn’t call,” Winona explained swiftly. 
“ It was only because we’ve been so busy.” 

“ So busy, up here?” Mrs. Whitney said 
smiling rather doubtfully. “ I thought you 
were on your vacation. Are you doing some 
special kind of work while you are here?” 

And the girls, seeing she was really inter¬ 
ested, proceeded to tell her about Mr. Van 
Horne and the little pumpkin house and the 
son whom they expected up that afternoon. 
She asked them a great many questions and 
they even told her about Mrs. Van Duesen and 
the highboy, and she sympathized with them. 

As she got back into her car, after awhile, 
she called to them across the intervening road. 

“ I wish you’d bring your brother and his 
friend and the Van Hornes to tea tomorrow.” 

And the girls thanked her gratefully and 
promised. 

“Isn’t she nice?” Winona said looking 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 213 


after the big car and throwing kisses to fat 
Matilda who leaned as far out as possible until 
she was out of sight. 

“ She is,” Louise said and added with a 
mock shudder, “ But oh, Winnie, when I heard 
you making plans for tomorrow so gayly, I 
couldn’t help wondering if there will be a 
tomorrow. At least one that we will want to 
live through and have to look back on with 
pleasure! Oh, suppose that Dr. Van Horne 
is a horrid person and is mean to his poor old 
father and hates us all bitterly for bringing 
him up here to this perhaps unhappy reunion!” 

“ Don’t you worry!” Winona said stoutly, 
tossing her head. “He won’t be that kind of a 
person or Tom wouldn’t have liked him. You 
know how particular Tom is!” 

“ Oh, I know you have reasons to toss 
your head proudly!” Louise said half laugh¬ 
ing. “ Any one who has staged as many suc¬ 
cessful plans as you have, can well afford to be 
haughty. But do you mind if I have a few 
private qualms ? Remember this is the first or 
second plan only, that I’ve been bridesmaid to, 
and I’m not quite sure what to do with the 
bride’s bouquet, I mean Mr. Van Horne’s 
gratitude, when I receive it tomorrow.” 

“Don’t worry about that!” Winnie said 
light-heartedly. “ Only wait until you get it 


214 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and the proper thing to do will come springing 
forth from your sub-conscious mind. 

Arm in arm, the girls walked through the 
Van Horne house for the last time before they 
would return to it that afternoon as its tempo¬ 
rary hostesses. Everything was in order and 
after giving a final rub to the already highly 
polished piano, they went out and carefully 
locked the door behind them. 

As Winnie turned to go down the steps, 
there was a rift in the grey clouds above them 
and a bit of blue sky peeped through. 

“ Surely that’s a good omen!” she said 
happily and ran down to the waiting carriage. 

“ Even Miss Latimer and the postmaster 
found that they weren’t very hungry when 
lunch time came along, and the girls could 
absolutely eat nothing in their excitement. 

“ It won’t hurt us to go without one meal,” 
Miss Latimer said wisely. “ And anyhow we 
can make it up at tea-time.” 

She was going to the Van Horne house 
with them to help with the tea, and so was 
the postmaster. 

After they had dressed themselves prettily, 
(Louise said she always had three times as 
much courage when she was dressed for the 
part,) they all drove down the twisting sweet¬ 
smelling road in air, which felt freshly washed 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 215 

from the heavy morning mists, to the changed 
little pumpkin house. 

There hadn’t been enough time to give it 
a new coat of paint, but the porch pillar had 
been repaired and the panes of glass had been 
put in by the handy Jim Burroughs. The girls 
had weeded the garden and the postmaster had 
cut the grass and trimmed and trained the rose¬ 
bush over its trellis. Fresh white curtains, 
made of cheese-cloth and embroidered with 
large worsted flowers, which made them look 
gay and summery, hung at the windows, which 
glistened in the afternoon sunlight. A brass 
knocker on the front door, which had been so 
black that the girls had not known it was brass 
until Miss Latimer told them, had been highly 
polished by Louise until it vied with the 
windows in catching the most sunbeams. It 
was indeed a changed and gay looking 
little house. 

“ If they don’t come soon I declare I’ll 
jump out of my frying-pan,” Miss Latimer 
said later, as she rocked agitatedly back and 
forth before one of the windows through which 
she had an uninterrupted view of the road. 

“ Don’t do that,” Louise said dryly and as 
she said it the postmaster leaned forward with 
a listening look and said: 


216 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ Here comes a car, she’s just made the 
last hill!” 

They listened attentively and by and by 
the sound of a horn warned them that an auto¬ 
mobile was taking the last sharp curve. In a 
minute it would be in sight. 

“ You look, Winnie,” begged Louise. “ If 
it isn’t them I don’t feel I could bear 
the disappointment.” 

So Winnie ran and stood next to Miss 
Latimer and looked expectingly out. 

“ Is it they?” Louise said teetering up and 
down on her toes. 

The car was now in sight and Winnie’s 
face fell. 

“No it isn’t,” she said disappointedly and 
turned away. 

The car full of people was abreast of the 
little house now, and Miss Latimer said they 
were slowing down. But they only slowed 
down to get a better view of the dressed-up 
house and soon were going as fast as ever with 
a farewell toot of the horn. 

“I can’t stand this!” Louise said after a- 
while. She had been sitting looking at the 
hands of the clock and anyone who has tried 
doing this knows how slowly they seem to move 
when you are waiting for something nice to 
happen. She jumped up and went out the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 217 


back door to a clump of pine trees, well out of 
sight of the road, and sat under them, her 
fingers in her ears and her eyes on a book which 
she strove bravely to keep her attention on. 

It wasn t until a shadow fell across her 
book and she looked up to see Tom standing 
before her, that she knew they had come. She 
jumped up and gave Tom both her hands, the 
book falling neglected at her feet. 

“ Oh, Tom, I am so glad to see you!” she 
cried, “ Please tell me the best or the worst, 
whichever it may be, is he nice?” 

44 I don’t think it’s a nice way to greet a 
man, even if you have known him for years and 
years and he’s your chum’s brother,” Tom said 
teasingly. “ Asking him about another man 
in the same breath as you say, 4 Hello! ’ ” 

44 Oh, Tom, don’t be silly,” she begged. 44 If 
you knew how we’ve been waiting for you all 
and wondering how he was going to take this 
reunion business, you’d be pleased and flattered 
to death that I thought to say hello first! 
Oh, will he kill us and think we’re bold 
for taking it upon ourselves to mind other 
people’s business?” 

44 1 don’t know,” Tom said and added by 
way of consolation: 44 It’s only for a few days 
anyway. Surely Thorndale is large enough for 
you and Winnie to keep down the other end 


218 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


of town if he should be angry. Between us, 
Billy and I could probably manage to 
amuse him.” 

Louise couldn’t help laughing at the men¬ 
tal picture she had of herself and Winnie and 
Miss Latimer and the postmaster all hiding in 
the shadow of the post-office for two or three 
days and Tom took her hand and led her into 
the house. 

A tall dark slim young fellow came for¬ 
ward to meet her. As soon as their hands met 
and she felt the strong friendly grip of his 
fingers, she knew she was going to like him, 
and she stole a look across the tea-table to 
where Winnie was standing talking earnestly 
to Billy. 

“ The old place hasn’t changed a bit,” he 
said, looking around. “ I see Dad has new 
curtains though. We used to have blue and 
white ones in here as I remember.” 

He walked over to the piano and struck a 
few cords with one hand as he stood there. 

“ How nice looking he is!” she thought to 
herself as she watched him. There was a 
certain resemblance to his father in the color 
of his eyes and the way his hair waved back 
from his forehead, but otherwise his features 
were sharper and firmer. His chin was 
particularly good. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 219 


“ So far, so good,” Louise whispered to 
Miss Latimer who was fussing over the 
tea-table. 

“ I should say so,” Miss Latimer replied. 
“ But why doesn’t old Mr. Van Horne come? 
Walter Harrison promised to have him here 
promptly at five.” 

“ I wonder how we could tactfully leave 
them alone for their first few minutes with 
each other?” Louise said thoughtfully. “ I 
think I’ll ask Winnie, she’ll know.” 

She went over to Winona who was still 
standing with Billy in one of the window 
recesses. 

44 1 wondered when you were going to give 
me a chance to tell you how glad I am to see 
you,” Billy said, taking her hand. 44 I watched 
your deep admiration for John Van Home 
quite jealously.” 

Louise laughed, 44 You’re not half as 
clever at teasing as Tom is. Better leam his 
ways before you can expect to affect me. I 
must speak to Winnie for a minute,” she added 
and took her friend’s arm. “ What shall we 
do so that they can be alone?” she hissed. 

44 Alone? Who wants to be alone?” 
Winnie said quite stupidly for her. 

44 The Van Hornes of course,” Louise 
answered. 44 Imagine how they will feel with 


220 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


all of us watching every little movement they 
make when they meet for the first time in 
five years.” 

“ I hadn’t thought of that,” Winnie said 
frowning. 

She stood thinking deeply for a minute or 
two, then she left them and went over to Mr. 
Thornton. For a few minutes they talked 
earnestly in low tones then Louise saw him go 
out to the front porch. Winnie came 
back smiling. 

“I’ve fixed that!” she said gayly. “Mr. 
Thornton is going to keep watch and when he 
sees Mr. Van Horne he is going to tell him he 
mustn’t be surprised about anything that 
happens and he mustn’t tell the son anything 
about the house being fixed up until he has 
had a talk with one of us. He won’t be as 
surprised as you may think about the house, 
it will be such a secondary thing compared 
with his son. After he tells him all this, Mr. 
Thornton is going to wave his hand to Miss 
Latimer who is stationed in the window again, 
and we’ll all go out into the kitchen and leave 
them alone for a time.” 

She had hardly finished when Miss Latimer 
came running over to them excitedly and said 
Mr. Van Home was coming in, so the girls 
collected Tom on the way out and left a some- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 221 

what dazed father and son to meet. Winnie 
couldn t refrain from taking one peep through 
the crack of the opened door before they closed 
it, and she saw John Van Home take a swift 
step or two across the intervening space and 
old Mr. Van Horne’s arms fold around him, 
quite as though he was a little boy. She shut 
the door softly and turned to the others with 
tears of happiness in her eyes. 

It was an hour later that Louise beckoned 
to Winnie and when she followed her out into 
the kitchen, led the way up the tiny back stair 
to the son’s room. She stood back so that 
Winnie had an uninterrupted view of the 
room. Winona gave a little cry, for there, in 
its proper comer, stood the old highboy which 
Mrs. Van Duesen had refused to let 
them have. 

“You darling!” cried Winnie kissing 
Louise, “ How did you ever persuade Mrs. 
Van Duesen to give it to you?” 

“ I didn’t get it here,” Louise said truth¬ 
fully. “ I am pretty sure you didn’t either 
because we’ve hardly been separated a minute 
the entire day. It must have been the post¬ 
master.” 

“ He didn’t have the time either,” Winnie 
said thoughtfully. “ But I think we’ll find 
out soon.” 


222 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ I have my suspicions too,” Louise said as 
they turned to go down stairs again. 

Everybody but the postmaster went to 
Miss Latimer’s for a late supper and then 
Billy^ drove the somewhat bewildered but 
happy old man and his son back to the pump¬ 
kin house. Winona went with him to show 
him the way back to the hotel. 

After they left the Van Hornes and had 
turned the car toward home, Billy, who was 
driving slowly turned to Winnie and said: 

“ Tom and I have been puzzling our brains 
wondering what you and Louise were up to 
now. Why this deep interest in the Van 
Hornes and, if you waited this long to open 
it, why the sudden demand for the box, which 
by the way, took up a great deal of room in 
the car which would have otherwise been 
occupied by our guest’s feet.” 

Winona explained everything to him and 
the hope the girls had of finding something in 
the box that vxmld be of interest to the doctor 
and his father. 

After she was through Billy looked down 
at her and smiled. 

“ Such a little planner!” he said gently. 

“ And suppose there isn’t anything in the box? 
What then?” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 223 

“ Oh, we’ll cross that bridge when we 
come to it!” she answered practically. 

They found Tom and Louise waiting for 
them impatiently. 

“We thought you were never coming 
back!” declared Louise. And pointing to the 
box which stood in the middle of the table, 
where the white china shaded lamp had been 
pushed aside to make room for it, she added: 

“ Please hurry and open that! It was all 
Tom could do to hold me back from striking 
it over its head with the poker. But he said it 
was really your box and it wasn’t fair to open 
it before you came.” 

“He was right,” Winona said firmly, 
walking over and laying her hand on the lid. 
“ What a funny old box it is, and to think of 
us having forgotten all about it! 

The box was about the size and shape of a 
small doll’s trunk. On the lid were three 
initials made by driving brass headed nails 
into the hard wood. 

« R. F. D.” Winnie said, squinting up her 
eyes in a way she had of doing when she was 
puzzled about anything. “ B. F« F. she re¬ 
peated, then turned to the others. “ Those 
aren’t Van Home initials.” she said. 

“ You remind me of the girl who sent a 
letter back with ‘ Wrong address scrawled 


224 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


across the envelope because she didn’t 
recognize the handwriting and decided that 
it couldn’t be for her.” Louise cried, “ How 
under the sun are you going to find out who 
Rural Free Delivery is if you don’t open 
his box!” 

“ I hope we don’t find any skeletons of 
dead animals,” Tom said, having once had that 
experience when he was young having glee¬ 
fully dug up and forced open a cigar box he 
had found deeply buried in a play-fellow’s 
yard. He gingerly took the screw-driver Miss 
Latimer had provided before she went up to 
bed, saying she knew they wanted to be alone 
and tried half-heartedly to pry up the lid. 

“ Here let me do that!” Billy said going 
over and taking the screw-driver out of 
Tom’s hand. 

“'Stand back every one!” cried Tom in 
mock tragic tones and putting his hands over 
his ears as though he expected a bomb to go 
off in their midst. 

Louise tucked her feet up under her at 
Tom’s allusions to the dead animals, but 
watched every movement of the screw-driver. 
It was an intense moment. Winnie was rock¬ 
ing hard and trying at the same time to give 
the appearance of absolute calmness. Tom 
stopped his ragging and looked interested too. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 225 


Billy struggled with the lock and suddenly 
with a shriek of protest, it gave way. Louise, 
her nerves strung up almost to a breaking 
point from the events of the day and the ex¬ 
citement of waiting for the opening of the old 
box, suddenly gave a low cry. 

“ I saw a face at the window!” she 
whispered, “ There it is again!” and she 
pointed at the window behind Winona. Billy 
turned sharply, the screw-driver still in his 
hand. Tom sprang forward and jerked up 
the shade, which had been drawn to about 
four inches from the window-sill, all the way 
up to the top. 

The world outside was bathed in the light 
of the full moon which was just about at its 
height. But as far as a human being was con¬ 
cerned, there was none in sight. 

“ You must have been mistaken, Louise,” 
Winnie said almost sharply, “ You’re all 
strung up, like the rest of us, about the box. 
For goodness sake let’s go on and open it.” 

But Louise turned to her and said stoutly: 

“ I wasn’t mistaken. I saw two eyes 
looking in at us. I think they were a man’s 
eyes, for when I pointed at them, it was a man’s 
shadow which straightened up and hurried 
away. I could see the eyes as plainly as I see 
yours, Winnie.” 

15 


226 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Winona shuddered. Billy and Tom, by 
this time, had hastened to the front door and 
the girls could hear them outside on the porch. 
They were walking around to the window 
where Louise had seen the peering eyes. 

“ If they look in at me I’ll die!” Winnie 
said nervously. 

“I’d rather be out there with boys than 
shut in here doing nothing!” declared Louise 
“ Come on let’s go out too.” 

Just as they were about to open the front 
door they heard a shuffle, a slight noise, then a 
larger one as if someone falling. They looked 
at one another and both were white. 

Louise threw open the door and ran out 
closely followed by Winnie. Before them the 
porch stretched smooth and empty in the 
bright moonlight which lighted up every 
corner and left no terrifying darkness where 
anyone could be hiding. But there were no 
boys in sight and the girls turned to one 
another in surprise. 

“Where can they be?” breathed Louise 
taking Winnie’s cold hand in hers and leading 
her back into the house and closing the door. 
She leaned against it heavily while she slipped 
the brass chain, which was on it, into place. 
Winnie sprang forward. 

“ Don’t do that! ” she cried. “ Don’t lock 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 227 


the boys out with those dreadful eyes. Open 
it again 1” 

“ Suppose we call Miss Latimer,” Louise 
suggested, reluctantly unchaining the door 
again. “ Perhaps she’d know something about 
it all. Oh, Winnie,” she cried plaintively, 
“ I’m so frightened.” 

Winona looked at Louise. She had never 
known her, in all the years of their friendship 
to be frightened before. Louise, who was 
generally so much braver than Winnie, was 
acting like a frightened child who wanted to 
hide its head. 

As they turned to go upstairs to Miss 
Latimer, they heard a low knocking at the 
door. It seemed to be made by a hand in a 
heavy glove. 

Winnie stood still, one hand on her beating 
heart. For a minute or two she could not 
make her feet go down the two steps she had 
ascended and cross the hall to that door which 
she had told Louise to unchain. Louise, at the 
sound of the knock, had sunk down on the 
bottom step and was hiding her face in her 
shaking hands. 

“ I’ve got to go,” she said to herself. “ I’ve 

got to go!” she repeated. 

She wished she had not asked Louise to 
take the chain off again, at least there would 


228 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


have been that between her and the person who 
stood outside knocking. As she thought this 
again the knock came, three distinct times. 

“ Louise,” Winnie said, pulling herself to¬ 
gether and trying to speak in a firm voice. 
“We can’t act like a couple of babies. I’m 
going to open that door and I want you to 
come with me.” 

Louise stood up, somewhat shamefacedly. 

“ All right,” she said, and followed Winona 
across the hall. 

“ Who is there?” Winona cried through 
the door. 

“ John Van Horne,” a man’s voice 
answered, and with a deep sigh of relief 
Winona threw open the door. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


“ Come in,” Winona begged. “ Oh, we 
are so glad to see you!” 

f What is the matter?” he asked looking at 
the girl’s white faces and then turning to close 
the door behind him. “ What has happened 
to frighten you?” 

As he stepped over the threshold Winnie 
looked at his hands. The most terrifying 
thing to her about the knock had been the 
softness of its sound. It had seemed as 
though someone was knocking who was wear¬ 
ing a velvet glove. Dr. Van Horne’s hands 
were bare. 

“Where are the boys?” he asked looking 
around the parlor where they had led him. 

Louise explained everything to him. He 
looked rather worried and paced nervously back 
and forth as she talked. After she had finished: 

“I’m going to see if I can find them,” he 
said, and departed without another word. 

Left to themselves again the girls looked 
at one another Louise went over and pulled 
down the shade which Tom had left up. 

“ What soft hands he must have,” she said 
half as though she was thinking aloud. 


2£9 


230 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ What do you mean? ” Winnie asked. She 
wanted to find out if her friend had had the 
same impression of the knock being made by 
a hand in a heavy glove. 

“ Why, when he knocked,” Louise said, 
“ It sounded to me that it couldn’t possibly 
be a man at the door. It sounded so faint and 
soft and oh, I don’t know—terrible!” 

“ I noticed his hands especially,” Winnie 
said, “ And he wore no gloves.” 

“ How I wish it was all over!” Louise said 
with a deep sigh. 

They heard the front door open and the 
voices of the boys. 

The girls ran out and met them in the hall. 

“What has happened?” cried Louise al¬ 
most tearfully, for Tom’s coat was covered 
with rapidly drying mud and Billy was holding 
one of his hands in the other, which was done 
up in a blood soaked handkerchief. 

“ Where is Dr. Van Horne?” Winnie said 
sharply, for the boys were alone. 

“Dr. Van Horne!” cried Billy. “What¬ 
ever would he be doing here with us at this 
time of night?” 

“ He was here just a minute ago,” Winnie 
said turning to Louise for corroboration. 

“ He went out to look for you,” Louise 
added. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 231 


“ Well, we didn’t see him,” Tom said, try¬ 
ing to brush his clothes somewhat shame¬ 
facedly, it seemed to the girls. 

“ Won’t somebody tell us what happened?” 
Louise begged. “We have been nearly fright¬ 
ened to death.” 

“ Do you know what your ‘ eyes ’ were?” 
Billy laughingly said. 

“ Of course not!” Louise said sharply. “ I 
didn’t follow them. But if I had I wouldn’t 
keep you waiting all night to hear about them 
when I got back!” she added indignantly. 

“ They were the cat Jerry’s eyes,” Billy 
said, with a smile. “ When Tom and I went out 
and found the porch empty, we walked around 
the house and still found nothing and then 
suddenly we saw a dark shape come out from 
under the porch where it had been hiding, scoot 
down the cellar stairs and we knew it was 
Jerry. So we thought you girls would feel 
better if we brought him in and showed you 
that it really had been he, so we chased him 
into a corner, at least v/e thought we had, and 
then he jumped right over Tom’s head and 
Tom tried to tackle him, like he used to do in 
football days, and of course he missed Jerry, 
and Tom fell down in a puddle which was left 
over from the bad weather we’ve been having.” 

“ And then Billy made a grab at J erry and 


232 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


missed him but Jerry got him/’ Tom went on 
with the story, pointing to Billy’s bound up 
hand in the bloody handkerchief. “So we 
thought we’d better call it a day and just tell 
you the stoiy, and we were on our way back 
when Jerry came out of another hiding place 
and he did look so tempting to catch, as he 
walked just a few paces ahead of us on the 
brightly moonlighted road, that we followed 
him down to the corn-field where he dis¬ 
appeared for good.” 

“ And what do you mean about John Van 
Home being here and going out to look for 
us ?” Billy asked Louise. 

“ He’ll probably be back in a minute,” she 
said turning away and walking over to the 
window. “ It still seems to me that they were 
men’s eyes,” she added reflectively. 

“ They couldn’t have been,” Tom said go¬ 
ing over to her. “ And the reason it looked 
like a man running away was because the moon 
made Jerry’s shadow four times as large as it 
it is ordinarily. 

As he spoke, without knocking at all this 
time, John Van Horne opened the door. He 
came forward eagerly at the sight of the boys 
and said: 

I m glad you are here! The girls seemed 
frightened badly about something and I 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 233 


thought it better to leave them and go in search 
of you.” 

Tom proceeded to tell him the story of the 
cat’s eyes which Louise had seen at the window. 
He laughed as Billy had done and then walk¬ 
ing into the middle of the sitting room his eyes 
fell on the box which stood where they had left 
it, the light from the white shaded lamp falling 
on the brass initials. 

“ Where did that jolly looking box come 
from?” he asked, turning to Louise who stood 
near him. 

Winnie came forward and answered for 
Louise. She told him the whole tale of how 
they had found the box last summer and how 
they hoped that it belonged to his family. 

“ It. F. D.” he said knitting his heavy 
black brows thoughtfully. “ Seems to me I 
heard father speak of a Rudolph Francis 
Duane. He was a great uncle on my father’s 
mother’s side, and from all accounts wasn’t a 
very pleasant gentleman.” 

“ Do you think it can be his box?” Winnie 
asked excitedly. “ We would have asked you 
to stay with us to open it,” she added hastily, 
thinking perhaps that he thought it odd of 
them to be so calmly taking it upon themselves 
to keep something which in reality belonged 
to his family, “ but we thought you would like 


234 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


to be with your father the first evening, and 
besides we didn’t want you to be disappointed 
if there isn’t anything.” 

“ That’s all right,” he said, still slightly 
frowning. “ There is something I want to ask 
you all, though. It is my reason for coming 
back at such a late hour.” 

They waited in silence for him to go on. 
All of them were sure however that they knew 
what was coming. 

“ Father acts upset about something,” he 
said after a minute or two. “He walks around 
the house touching this and that piece of 
furniture almost as though he hadn’t seen it 
for a long time and he was mighty glad to get 
it back. And he said a very odd thing when 
he saw the old highboy in my room. He said, 
“I’m glad that they didn’t scratch it, it 
hardly looks as though it had been moved at 
all does it?” Can you tell me what he meant, 
for he caught himself up after he said it and 
looked quite guilty. I’d really like to know.” 

Everyone looked at Winnie. She was 
standing where the lamp light fell full upon her 
face and at their steady glances she flushed. 
She was worried about her plan, at last. Sup¬ 
pose this tall Van Home man who insisted 
upon knitting his heavy black brows in such a 
terrifying way should not understand that they 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 235 


had only meant to do right. He might be very 
angry at her, for after all it was her plan and 
Louise had tried to get her not to go on 
with it! 

Seeing that everyone else was looking at 
Winnie for an answer, John Van Horne looked 
too. So she took a deep breath and began 
her story. 

It must have taken fully fifteen minutes to 
tell it all, and it was fully five more minutes 
before he said anything to give them an idea of 
how he was taking it. It was one of the most un¬ 
pleasant silences Winnie had ever been 
through. Louise came over and stood next to 
her, as though to give her courage by her 
presence. Even Tom and Billy moved a 
trifle closer. 

“ It’s all so sudden!” he said finally. “I 
hadn’t any idea how father was situated. He 
always wrote me the j oiliest kind of letters and 
they were always posted from New York or 
Philadelphia. I didn’t know that he was up 
here. I sent his letters in the care of his club 
in New York and they must have forwarded 
them to him. It all seems so unreal somehow 
and unbelievable.” He sank down on a rock¬ 
ing chair and sat for a minute or two looking 
straight ahead of him. There was something 
so dejected in his pose that it touched some- 


236 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


thing in Louise’s heart and made her suddenly 
very sorry for him. She went over to him im¬ 
pulsively and laid her hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t feel so badly,” she said. “We’re 
all here ready to help you do anything you 
think best. It really was the only way for you 
to find out the true circumstances.” 

She went on to tell him of how the 
Woman’s Aid had wanted to write and how 
his father had not allowed them to do so. 

He put his hand over hers and gave it a 
thankful little squeeze, then he stood up. 

“ Will you all help me some more?” he 
asked at the row of sympathetic faces be¬ 
fore him. 

“ Of course! ” Winnie cried. “ If you’ll 
only tell us how.” 

“ I’m wondering how the best way to take 
it is,” he said as they seated themselves around 
the table and looked inquiringly at him 
for orders. 

And so for half an hour they talked of 
ways and means and it was finally decided to 
not say anything about it to old Mr. Van 
Horne unless he asked them, and that the son 
would try to buy back the furniture, 

Winnie hadn’t talked very much for the 
last few minutes. She had been sitting back 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 237 

a little out of the lamp light and now she 
leaned forward and said: 

“ Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t plan any 
more for you, but there is one thing I would 
like to suggest. I think that it will be rather 
hard for your father to stay in Thorndale after 
you go back West. I think he’d probably like 
to go down to New York or to Philadelphia, 
and if he would go, it will be rather a waste of 
money to buy back all the furniture. Of 
course there are some pieces you’ll want to 
keep for association’s sake, but the majority 
would be just as well returned to the people 
we borrowed them from. Then with the 
money you would have spent on that, Mr. Van 
Horne could live quite a little while in New 
York or Philadelphia.” 

She sank rather shyly after this long speech. 
But Billy said, looking at her as he said it. 

“ I think Winnie’s right, as usual.” 

“ I wonder if father would find it very 
lonely out West?” John said looking at them 
in turn. “ That would be a change for him 
and I’d like so much to have him.” 

Louise sank back with a sigh. 

“ That is exactly what I thought would be 
the nicest thing of all for your father,” she 
said decidedly. “ I think he would be happier 
there than anywhere else in the world.” 


238 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Everybody agreed to this and all their 
spirits Went up after that. It was Tom who 
suddenly pointed to the old box and said: 

“We seemed doomed not to open it. 
Come ahead, let’s try again!” 

The five young people bent eagerly over 
the box. This time it was John who lifted 
the lid. 

“ Oh! ” cried Winona. “ Whatever is it? ” 

The box was filled with letters. Old faded 
yellow pack of neatly arranged, neatly tied 
up letters. 

On the top of one of the piles was a slip 
of paper with “ John Alexander Van Home, 
his letters, 1769-1780 ” written on it. The 
handwriting Was the stiff neat writing of 
long ago. 

Louise looked up and said excitedly: 

“ Then it really is your father’s ancestors! 
E* F. D. or Rudolph Francis Duane must have 
collected the letters and put them all in his 
own box.” 

John’s face was flushed and excited and his 
eyes brilliant as he turned back to the box. He 
took out pack after pack of letters, possibly 
six in all, and laid them on the table. On the 
very bottom of the box was a brown little book, 
dog-eared and worn as though it had been 
through hard days before it had been placed 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 239 

in the box. John opened to the title page and 
the others gathered closer to look too. It 
read: Diary of J ohn Alexander Van Horne 

1775-1780.” He placed this on the table 
too, along with the letters then he turned to the 
boys and girls. 

Let s each take a package of letters and 
see what we can find,” he said, handing a 
particularly fat package to Louise as he spoke. 
The others agreed and each took a package, 
leaving one lying with the little book. 

Winona was the first to get the knot of the 
faded red tape which held her letters together, 
unfastened. She slipped one out of its en¬ 
velope and hastily read it through and as she 
did so, her face fell. 

“ Did any of you ever hear of Robert 
Morris?” she asked. “ This letter is from him 
and seems very stupid to me, all about some 
money dealings, as far as I can find out.” 

“Don’t you know,” Louise said hastily, 

“ He had something to do with financing the 
Revolution. Didn’t he Tom?” 

“ Can’t prove it by me,” answered Tom, as 
though he didn’t want to be interrupted in the 
middle of the letter he was reading and 
suddenly he gave a whoop. 

“Listen to this!” he cried. “I guess we 


240 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

all know who this is 1 Anthony Wayne! Mad 
Anthony, no less! Oh, this is good!” 

“ Oh, let us see!” the girls cried in unison, 
but Tom laughingly held it above his head 
and said: 

“ Read your owti and don’t waste so much 
time. Hurry up and perhaps you’ll find some¬ 
thing better than mine even.” 

Billy hadn’t joined in the general scramble 
for the letter, he was busily reading one from 
his own pack. When he finally finished he 
turned to John and said quietly. 

“ I’ve found one here that if it is authentic, 
will be very valuable,” and he held out a small 
slip of paper to John, who took it and read it 
then looked at Billy, his eyes brighter 
than ever. 

“ Do give it to me!” cried Louise, and John 
handed it to her. 

“Winnie!” cried Louise a minute later, 
“ It’s from Benedict Arnold!” 

“ Before he became a traitor,” Billy added. 

After that the letters became general. 
Everyone just took whatever they thought 
most interesting looking but it was Winona 
who suddenly sat back and gave a low little 
gasp, half of excitement, half of incredibility. 
Her hand was shaking from excitement as she 
held out a worn old envelope and its contents, 
a narrow particularly faded piece of paper. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 241 

John took it and read aloud the writing on 
the envelope: 

“ Kept in memoiy of our Great and 
Revered President of the United States of 
America, George Washington.” And under¬ 
neath was written, “ And mav God bless and 

* 

keep him.” 

On the faded slip which had been within 
the envelope was one short sentence. It was 
evidently a direction from Washington to 
Colonel Van Horne as one of his aides. But 
the few short words of the message didn’t 
count; it was the signature George Washington 
that held the eyes of the young people and 
made them look at one another almost in awe. 

“Do you think they can all be real?” 
Winnie said, in a hushed voice, patting with a 
soft hand one of the letters which was 
still unopened. 

“If they are, they are worth untold gold,” 
Billy said decidedly. “ How about the 
diary, John?” 

John had been reading the diary, slapping 
to a page here and there but as Billy spoke he 
looked up. 

“ It seems that my great-great-grand¬ 
father went through the entire war,” he said, 
shutting the book. “It is the most exciting 
thing that has ever happened to me, finding all 
16 


242 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

these things after so many years! I wonder 

what father will say!” 

“ I can hardly wait to have you tell him! 
Louise cried impulsively. “ I wish he could 
have been here when we opened the box!” 

“ I wish Roger were here! ” Winnie said 
with a sigh. “ He’s so clever, I’m sure he’d 
know whether these letters are authentic. 
Nobody answered her. 

“ Would you mind,” he asked, “ If I went 
home now and took these things with me? I 
guess father will be waiting for me. I’d like to 

show them to him tonight.” 

“ Certainly not!” Winnie cried, and 
jumped up hurriedly and started to bundle 
the letters back into their neat piles and to 
place them in the box. Louise helped her and 
it was soon done. 

After everything had been replaced John 
took the box and walked to the door with it 
held carefully under his arm. 

Billy sprang up hastily and said he’d run 
him home in the car and when he was getting 
it, Louise stood in the doorway with John. 
They stood silently looking out at the moon¬ 
lighted world and after a while Louise turned 

to him and said: 

“ Will you answer a question?” 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 243 


“Anything at all!” he said, almost gayly 
for him. 

“ Will you tell me then why your knock 
was so soft tonight when you came to the 
door when Winnie and I were waiting for the 
boys? It sounded as though you were wearing 
velvet gloves.” 

“ Did it? ” he said, half smiling at her. “ I’m 
glad that it did, for I was afraid if I knocked 
too loud I might disturb Miss Latimer. I 
wrapped my coat around my hand to soften 
the sound.” 

Louise laughed rather shamefacedly. 

“I’ll confess I thought for one dreadful 
moment it was a ghost,” she said. “ And I’m 
almost sure Winnie did too, but we were a- 
fraid to admit it to each other! I absolutely 
could not bring myself to open the door to a 
ghost. If I thought it would have been a flesh 
and blood robber I would have wept on his 
shoulder from pure joy.” 

Billy blew the horn just then to let them 
know he was waiting and John said goodnight. 

She found Tom and Winnie in a deep dis¬ 
cussion when she returned to the living room. 

“ You are the most tactless girl I ever 
saw!” Tom was saying in brotherly frankness, 
looking at Winona in scorn. 

“ What did I do ?” Winnie cried in be- 


244 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


wilderment, but Tom refused to answer her. 

“Whatever is the matter now?” Louise 
asked, looking from one to the other. 

“ Oh! Winnie tactfully wished that Roger 
was here to tell us if the letters were valuable 
or not!” Tom said witheringly. “And Billy 
naturally didn’t like it. He went out 
of the room looking as though he’d like to 
choke Winnie.” 

“ Well if Billy is as silly as that,” Winnie 
said scornfully, “ to take offense about my 
wishing Roger were here, he can go off and 
have the pouts for all of me! ” 

“ Don’t you know by this time that no man 
likes to have a girl or anyone for that matter, 
wishing for another man because she thinks 
he is more clever than the first man?” Tom 
asked still witheringly, although a trifle 
mixed himself when it came to explaining it. 

“ I don’t pretend to know anything about 
men,” Winnie said with affected dignity. “ I 
haven’t the time to make a study of their 
whims as you seem to think I should do.” 

“All right Lady Vere de Verel” Tom 
cried laughingly admitting that Winnie had 
won this particular passage at arms. “ Have 
it your own way!” 

The tension broken, they all laughed and 
immediately felt better for it. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 245 

Billy opened the door just then and stuck 
his head in. 

“ Winnie, will you come out here for a 
moment?” he asked somewhat shamefacedly, 
and Winona always quick to forgive and for¬ 
get jumped up gladly and went to him. 

He led the w;ay to the porch where the 
moon, riding high in the heavens, painted the 
wooden floor with black and silver making it 
look like a huge checker-board. It was almost 
as light as day, but familiar objects wrapped 
in the silver light took on fairy forms which 
were never theirs in the day time. The world 
seemed a magic place. A little light wind 
blew refreshingly and Winona held her face 
up to it as though inviting its cooling kisses. 

For a time they stood in silence letting the 
beauty of the night soothe the excitement of 
the long thrilling day, which had been filled to 
the brim with happenings. 

Finally Billy said: 

“I’m sorry I dashed out the way I did to 
take Van Home home. When I got outside I 
realized what an utter fool I’d been so I came 
back to tell you as soon as I could.” 

Winona looked up at him gratefully. 

“ It was a hard day,” she said with a little 
sigh. “ And an exciting evening, I suppose 
we are all strung up more than we realize.” 


246 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Then to change the subject she told him about 
Mrs. Van Duesen and the returned highboy. 

“ Mrs. Van Duesen probably had a change 
of heart,” he said lightly, dismissing the 
sub j ect. 

“ Perhaps,” Winnie said thoughtfully, 
“ but I don’t think so.” 

“ Well don’t bother your little head about 
it tonight!” he answered in a big brother tone. 
“ I think a little walk may do you good and 
make you sleep better.” 

Not waiting for her to reply, he slipped in 
and took a blue cloak from a peg behind the 
door and wrapped it around Winona’s 
shoulders. 

“ You look like a little Blue Riding Hood,” 
he said, tying the strings in front for her, quite 
as though she were a little girl and unable to 
take care of herself. 

She smiled up at him happily. 

“ Sometimes it’s nice to have someone take 
care of you as though you were a little girl 
again,” she said pensively. “ Sometimes lately 
I feel dreadfully old. When I look back upon 
the time we had the Camp Fire and the pag¬ 
eant and the year we ran the War Farm and 
the Community Service year, and I remember 
how much each and everyone of them meant 
to me, and how we girls used to sit by the 



“i KNOW HOW YOU FEEL,” BILLY SAID. “YOU ARE WAITING FOR YOUR 

DREAMS TO COME TRUE” 


































































































































WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 247 

hour and plan and plan and try to think up 
things to do to make us better and better every 
day in every way,” this she said half laugh¬ 
ingly, “and how much life meant to me, and 
now, when I’m really seeing great big thick 
slices of life every day down in the Garnett 
Neighborhood House, and am really doing 
something worth while, why still, those other 
times seem the biggest of all, and I’m sure 
they were the happiest! Louise and I were 
saying the other night that we didn’t feel 
settled in anything. It is just as though we 
were waiting for a curtain to go up and that 
we wanted to hurry and get everything we are 
doing now, finished and out of the way before 
the curtain does go up. I never used to be 
restless this way.” 

“ I know how you feel,” Billy said. “ You 
are waiting for your dreams to come true. It 
is time they did; you and Louise have been 
spinning and making them for years and 
while you were dreaming them, why, then you 
were happy. But now your thread is all used 
up, for a time, you’ll have to have a realized 
dream to get more thread from. I think 
I’m right.” 

“ Perhaps you are,” Winnie said thought¬ 
fully. “ I thought the Garnett Neighborhood 
House was my dream last year, and I thought 


248 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


it was a big enough one to last me a whole life¬ 
time, but somehow it has changed, I couldn’t 
just tell you where or how, and I find I am 
wishing for something else. I wonder if I 
would have been happier if I had gone 
to England with Roger’s mother when she 
wanted me?” 

“ Winnie,” Billy said, standing still in the 
road and taking her by the arm and turning 
her slowly toward him. “ There is something 
I want to ask you, promise me you’ll give me a 
true answer.” 

“ I’ll tell you the truth Billy,” Winona said 
looking at him steadily out of her large blue 
eyes. “ Ask me anything you like.” 

“ Winnie dear,” Billy said and his voice 
sounded rather husky, “dp you love Roger?” 

Winnie’s eyes fell before his searching blue 
ones. They stood silently in the moonlight 
for a few minutes. The white light made 
little silver hollows in her slim young neck, for 
the blue cape had fallen back and left it bare. 

Finally she looked up at him. 

“ I don’t honestly think I’m in love or 
know the meaning of love or ever think of itl” 
she said truthfully. “ I’m perfectly con¬ 
tented with you and Tom and Louise and I 
like Roger’s friendship too. But, for being in 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 249 


love with him or anyone else for that matter, 
I don’t think I am.” 

Billy looked deep into her eyes and seemed 
satisfied for he let go of her arm and said in a 
low voice; 

“ For the second time this evening, I’m 
sorry to have bothered you. I seem to be a 
selfish soul, only thinking of myself and the 
answers to my questions. Will you for- 
give me? 

“Of course,” Winnie said, and added: “I 
think we’d better go back now. Louise and 
Tom will be missing us if we don’t.” 

When they returned to the sitting room 
they found Louise and Tom waiting and still 

talking about the old box. 

“ I wish,” Winona started to say, and then 
stopped, remembering the disastrous results 
of her last wish. 

“ What were you going to wish this time?” 
Tom asked in a sarcastic voice which brothers 
-only seem able to use to sisters when they are 
bringing them up. 

Winona flushed but added bravely, “I 
was going to say I wished Charles were here.” 

“ Now you are wishing for someone sensi¬ 
ble,” Tom said more kindly. 

“ Thank you, most gracious Sir!” Winona 

said making a deep curtsey. 


250 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Tom stood up and bowed very low to her, 

“ I mean it,” he said straightening up and 
running his hand through his straight, man- 
colored hair. “ Charles would of course know 
all about it. Now, we’ll have to cart all the 
things way back.” 

“ Well, we can’t do anything more to¬ 
night,” Louise said. “ Come on Winnie, let’s 
go upstairs, my eyes feel like pin-points I’m 

so sleepy.” 

They went upstairs and stumbled into their 
room. Louise struck a match and disclosed 
the boys’ belongings neatly laid out on the 
bureau top, and their bags standing, still open, 
on the table. 

“ Horrible! ” cried Louise. “ We said we’d 
sleep in the other room, do you remember? be¬ 
cause the beds belonged to Mr. Van Horne. 
Oh, I’m so tired I’d give anything for a com¬ 
fortable bed under me tonight.” 

Winona led the way across the hall. She 
pointed down dramatically to the mattresses 
neatly made up, on the floor. 

“Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose,” 
Louise said, scrambling out of her dress as 
quickly as she could. “I’m too sleepy to even 
wash my face.” She laid down on her mat¬ 
tress and gave a sigh of relief. 

“ It’s not so bad,” she said snuggling down 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 251 

into her pillow. “ I guess Miss Latimer gave 
us each about four feather ones.” 

“I’m so tired I could sleep on the floor,” 
Winnie said, but although she had meant it 
when she said it, she found herself lying awake 
and going over and over in her mind the events 
of the day, and the thing which stood out the 
sharpest of all was what Billy had told her 
about waiting for her dreams to come true. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


They drove over to Mrs. Whitney’s the 
next afternoon as they had planned. Every¬ 
one liked everyone else, including Matilda and 
little John. Of course the subject of the box 
came up and Mrs. Whitney was told all 
about it. She was properly impressed, the 
girls thought and when she beckoned to them, 
a little while later, they followed her gladly 
into the house, feeling that she was going to 
ask more about it all. 

“ I’m tremendously interested in the whole 
thing!” she said as they sank down in comfor¬ 
table wicker chairs in her own little private 
room, where she had led them. “ I’m going 
to give you a note to take to my husband,” she 
went on, flushing prettily as she said it but go¬ 
ing bravely on. “ I know that he will be able 
to tell you just how valuable those letters and 
the diary are, and I’m pretty sure if you took 
them to anyone else, that you didn’t really 
know, they might charge you for telling you 
and then might tell you they are of no value.” 

“ He lives in New York,” she went on go¬ 
ing over to her desk and taking a piece of note- 
paper from the top drawer. The girls thanked 

252 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 253 

her gratefully and for a time only the sound 

of her hurrying pen broke the silence of 
the room. 

“ There!” she said finally holding the sheet 
of paper out for the girls to read, and when 
they were finished, slipping it into an envelope. 

“ He has made a study of Colonial things 
for years, and I believe he has one of the most 
complete collections of its kind in New York,” 

Suddenly Louise said: 

4 Hid you persuade Mrs. Van Duesen to 
give up her highboy?” 

“ We found it in John Van Horne’s room 
yesterday afternoon,” Winnie explained.’ 

“Yes, I did,” Mrs. Whitney said half 
shyly. “ It didn’t take much to induce her to 
let me borrow it after I told her a thing or two.” 

The girls thanked her and finally they 
went back and joined the men on the porch. 

Winnie went up to the room she shared 
with Louise early that night. She wasn’t par¬ 
ticularly sleepy however, after she got there, 
so propped herself up on her mattress with her 
own and Louise’s pillows which she bor¬ 
rowed, and prepared to read until Louise 
came upstairs. 

Tom and Louise had disappeared right 
after the light Sunday night supper, saying 
they were going out on the river canoeing. 


254 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Hilly and she had gone for a walk but they 
were both tired from the previous day’s 
happenings and when Billy said he had to go 
back and get the car in readiness for the long 
trip it had to take the following day, she wel¬ 
comed the chance to escape to her own room 
and be alone for a time. 

It was very lonely in Thorndale in the 
winter, Miss Latimer had told the girls, and 
there was little to do. She had therefore, 
collected a number of books from here and 
there and everywhere, and although she kept 
them in her own room and for her own use, she 
allowed the girls to read them. Now, Winona 
was deep in Rhoda Broughton’s “ Good-bye 
Sweetheart. Of course she found it sentimen¬ 
tal and untrue to present day life, for girls 
don’t die of broken hearts nowadays, with so 
many things to take the place of their lost 
lovers and the common sense to see these things. 
Notwithstanding, she found herself “ Weep¬ 
ing a little weep ” over the sad ending, when 
Lenore, the beautiful, dies of consumption. 

She put the book down and lay thinking 
for a time, and then was called back to reality 
by the sound of Louise’s swiftly running feet 
in the corridor outside and the sudden opening 
and closing of the room door. 

Louise, her eyes shining and her cheeks 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 255 


becomingly flushed and looking particularly 
pretty, ran lightly over and threw herself on 
her knees by the side of Winnie’s low mattress. 

“ Whatever is the matter?” Winnie cried 
in low-voiced surprise, for Louise was more 
excited than she had ever remembered see¬ 
ing her. 

“ Shut your eyes and I’ll tell you, for I 
can’t bear to tell with you looking at me, I’m 
so horribly embarrassed!” Louise cried softly, 
and Winona obeyed. 

She felt Louise’s arms steal around her 
and hold her very tightly and then whispering 
very low and jumbling all her words in to¬ 
gether Louise told Winnie her great news. 

“ Are you trying to tell me you and Tom 
are engaged!” cried Winona sitting up per¬ 
fectly straight and opening her blue eyes very 
wide. “ I can’t believe it! Why it was only 
yesterday it seems that you were children 
quarrelling and teasing one another!” 

“ We were only quarrelling and teasing 
one another about half an hour ago,” Louise 
laughed light-heartedly. “ And I suppose we’ll 
quarrel and tease each other all the rest of our 
natural lives! But oh, Winnie! do say you 
are glad. I ran all the way home to tell you 
and left Tom down at the river tying up the 
canoe!” Winona put her arms around Louise 


256 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

now and kissed her heartily on each of her 
pretty cheeks and also on her mouth. 

“ Of course you know I’m delighted!” she 
cried. “ But isn’t it rather sudden? I knew you 
and Tom always liked each other but I never 
knew you were thinking of becoming engaged 
for many years to come! Goodness how old we 
all must be getting!” 

“ We are getting older,” Louise said more 
soberly. “ But no, I wouldn’t say our engage¬ 
ment was a surprise. Ever since I’ve known 
Tom I ve never thought about another boy 
and he said tonight he has felt the same way 
about me.” 

“ Didn’t you ever see anyone you thought 
you might like better?” Winona asked almost 
wistfully, thinking as she did so how Roger and 
Billy had so often teetered back and forth in 
her affections. 

“I never did,” Louise said spiritedly, 
Never! Why I think I would have felt like 
a Mormoness if I had! Tom has always pleased 
me in everything. He knows how to fit into 
my moods, as I flatter myself I know how to 
fit into his. I think he is very handsome and I 
adore his family,” and she gave Winona an 
affectionate squeeze. Life seemed very full 
and pleasant to Louise at that moment and 
she was lavish with her affections. She would 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 257 

have liked to have stood on a high hill-top with 
her arms open to receive and hug the entire 
world, fish, fowl and human! 

Winnie laughed. 

“ How sure you are!” she cried. “ It must 
be lovely to feel the way you do at this 
present minute!” 

“ It is,” said Louise the downright. “No 
use in pretending that it isn’t. Wait until it 
happens to you and you’ll see, and you won’t 
lie and laugh at yourself as you are now doing 
at me, either!” 

‘ I probably won’t!” Winona said with an 
exaggerated sigh. “I’ll probably be taken my¬ 
self as seriously as you and the rest of the 
people who are in love always do. Oh, well, 
plenty of time for that! ” she said. “ Tell me 
some of your plans, or haven’t you had time 
to make any yet.” 

“ That reminds me!” Louise cried jumping 
up and running over to the door. “ I left Tom 
down at the boat house tying up the canoe and 
ran ahead to tell you all about it. He’s prob¬ 
ably downstairs waiting to hear how you have 
taken it. I’d better go down and tell him.” 
And she whisked out of the room as quickly as 
she had come in. 

Left alone, Winnie punched her pillows 


17 


258 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


back into place and leaned back to think the 
whole thing over. 

She couldn’t help envying Tom and Louise 
a little. They were so sure of each other it 
seemed. Had been for so long in fact, that 
they had simply taken it for granted that every¬ 
one knew that they loved one another. She 
wondered if every girl always knew her true 
love when she saw him. She remembered 
Lenore had in “ Good-bye Sweetheart.” Louise 
too, had just told her that she had never 
thought of anyone beside Tom since she had 
met him years and years ago. She thought of 
Billy and Roger, both of whom she felt were a 
little more than just friends to her. Both of 
them were good and kind and infinitely patient. 
How sweet Billy had been only the night be¬ 
fore. She remembered how he had wrapped 
the little blue cloak around her. She had felt 
quite happy being with him and she liked being 
taken care of. Then she recalled Roger, and 
the last time she had seen him, waving to her 
from the steamer. 

On and on went her thoughts. Had she 
perhaps finished with all the material of which 
her girlish dreams had been made, as Billy had 
said she had done? He had said she would 
ha\ e to wait for one of her dreams to material¬ 
ize before she could go on. And then suddenly 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 259 


she realized that the Garnett Neighborhood 
House had been the biggest dream of all. She 
had meant it, the year before, when she had 
told Billy she couldn’t go down south to stay 
with his mother and sister because she felt that 
she had her work and that she loved and needed 
it, and that she felt that it, perhaps just a little, 
needed her too. She had meant it absolutely 
and had felt very secure in that dream for 
quite a time. She had been happy, but after 
all had she really helped the children as much 
as she had hoped to do, had she been 
able to do the work any better than a 
thousand other girls who would have had 
her place? She felt very humble as she 
lay there on her low mattress, humble and 
rather worthless and looking back on the 
Winona she had been in the past, envied her 
very much. That Winona had always thought 
she was doing right. Always knew that her 
heart would guide her. This new Winona she 
had discovered herself to be was a stranger. A 
new girl entirely and one she wasn’t quite sure 
how to get along with. She didn’t quite know 
what to do when this new girl whispered to her 
that perhaps work wasn’t all, after all, that per¬ 
haps love, such as Charles and Helen and 
Louise and Tom felt for one another, was 
worth while and not to be pushed aside until 


260 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


one had nothing else to think of. Perhaps by 
that time it would be tired of waiting and 
would have gone. 

She let her thoughts run on for awhile 
longer then she suddenly jumped up from the 
mattress and walked over to the window. 

“ This will never do,” she cried sharply. 
And she was glad to hear the tones of the old 
Winona she knew so well, in her decided voice. 

“ I mustn’t become sentimental,” she cried 
almost impatiently. “It must be the effect of 
the book, and the news of Louise and Tom 
becoming engaged.” She gave “ Good-bye 
Sweetheart,” a slight push as she spoke and it 
slipped down behind the wash-stand where she 
let it lie. 

She felt high strung and nervous and in no 
condition to listen to Louise’s gay talk when 
she would return, so she put out the lamp and 
left a shaded candle for Louise, thinking as she 
did so that it might be burned out before Louise 
came upstairs, if she and Tom were like the 
rest of the engaged people she had known in 
her life. And when Louise did come up about 
half an hour later, Winona really had 
fallen asleep. 

The boys were up at four the next morning, 
stamping and fussing around, getting their 
things packed in the car. Although they tried 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 261 


not to waken the girls, Louise heard them and 
called Winona, suggesting they go down and 
have breakfast with them. 

At five, just as the sun came up to peep 
over the shoulder of a range of mountains in 
the east, the boys left. Louise and Winona 
dressed in thin summer frocks, shivered as they 
stood on the porch in the early morning light. 
They waved and waved until the boys were out 
of sight. It was almost with a sigh of relief 
that Winnie turned to go into the house again. 
Many of her thoughts of the night before of 
Billy and Boger had returned with morning 
and had made her self-conscious and not al¬ 
together happy in Billy’s presence. 

The rest of their stay in Thorndale was 
pleasant. John Van Horne had not returned 
with the boys to the city. He remained to 
settle things and planned to go down with the 
girls and his father the following Saturday. In 
the matter of the letters he had had many talks 
with Mrs. Whitney and he was thoroughly con¬ 
vinced that they were authentic. 

When the day came for them to go home, 
Mrs. Whitney called for them in her large 
car. They were very grateful, but Winona 
looking closely at Miss Latimer’s kindly face 
when she was kissing her good bye, noticed 
that she was looking disappointed. She took 


262 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

her by both arms and turned her around to 
face the light from the window. 

“ What is the matter?” she asked in a low 
voice. “Please tell me, I know that you are 
disappointed about something. Is there any¬ 
thing we can do?” 

But before Miss Latimer could answer, the 

Ford which had brought the girls over to 

Thorndale, drew up to the door with a 

loud toot of its well-trained horn. In the 

rear seat was Mr. Thornton. And then 

Winona knew! Their friends were planning 

to take them in the Ford, and Mrs. Whitney’s 

offer to drive them over had completely broken 

up their plan. With the realization of this, she 

dropped Miss Latimer’s arms and ran out to 

the car. She spoke hastily to Mrs. Whitney, 

who smiled and ordered the chauffeur to drive 

* 

on, and with a smile and a wave of her hand, 
she called over her shoulder. 

“ I’ll go ahead and pick up the Van 
Horne’s, and see you later at the station.” 

Louise turned to ^Vinona in surprise. 

“ What does she mean?” she asked. 

Hurriedly Winnie told her, and Louise said 
under her breath. 

“ Isn’t it good you found it out in time,” 
and then she walked over to Mr. Thornton and 
climbed into the Ford next to him. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 263 

Miss Latimer ran out and took Winnie’s 
hands. 

“ Isn’t Mrs. Whitney driving you over?” 
she asked excitedly. 

“No,” Winnie said, patting the kindly 
hand resting on her arm. “ No,” and she 
added: “ Hurry up and get your hat on for you 
are coming down to see us off.” 

Miss Latimer was as excited as a school 
girl as she flutteringly climbed into the car. 
Her bonnet was a little to one side but she was 
too happy to notice it. Mr. Hazen came out 
and stood on the porch bellowing good-bye to 
them as long as they were in sight, so loud was 
his voice. His handsome face and shy little boy 
smile were the last things they saw before they 
turned a bend in the road. 

As they passed the branch of the road lead¬ 
ing to the little pumpkin house, now 
nicely boarded up for the winter, Louise 
cried excitedly: 

“Oh, there is Mrs. Van Duesen and she’s 

waving to us to stop!” 

The Ford slowed down and Mrs. Van 
Duesen came forward in rather bold yet 
shamefacedly way. 

She held out her bony hand stiffly to 
Louise and said: 

“ Well, I guess I’d better tell you I’m glad 


264 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


you got the highboy, and I’ve come to the con¬ 
clusion that the old man wasn’t so bad after all. 
I got to thinking I’d be missing seeing him 
around this fall and winter.” 

She said it all grudgingly but Louise wasn’t 
a person to hold anything in for any one and 
she was quick to see that Mrs. Van Duesen was 
really trying to be nice, (for her!) So she 
leaned forward and took the outstretched hand 
and said: 

“ We’re glad too about the highboy. It 
was nice of you to let us have it after all.” 

“ And I didn’t charge the son a mite more 
than I paid for it when he came to buy it 
back,” Mrs. Van Duesen said as a parting. 

“That was lovely of you!” Louise cried 
and they bid her good bye and went on their 
way again. Tears came to Winnie’s eyes as 
she looked out the train window at the group 
standing on the platform. 

“ Every one was nice even Mrs. Van 
Duesen,” she said. 

The girls decided to stay at the Little 
Crooked House for two days before going up 
to their families, and so be able to go with John 
Van Horne when he took the letters and the 
diary to Mr. Whitney. 

John called for them about ten o’clock on 
the morning they were to see Mr. Whitney. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 265 


He carried the letters and diary, done up neatly 
in brown paper, under his arm, and the girls 
had never known him to be in such high spirits. 
They took the subway down-town and walked 
across Central Park to one of the cross streets 
in the sixties. The Whitney house was a tall 
somewhat narrow four story brown-stone one. 
Back in the nineties rows and rows of them had 
been built exactly alike, and they had certainly 
been built for convenience and the thought of 
the families comfort, for they were particularly 
well-arranged. 

The two girls and the young man climbed 
the steep flight of brown stone steps to the 
front door and stood in an anxiously waiting 
group for their ring to be answered. They 
stood there fully five minutes before Louise, 
who was nearest to the electric button, pushed 
the bell again. They waited again for several 
minutes and then they heard foot-steps behind 
the closed door and a man opened it. 

He was tall and slender and dark and his 
black hair was turning white at the temples. 
He peered at them through thick lense glasses, 
and waited for them to explain their reason 
for ringing his bell. 

It was Winona who spoke first. She put 
out her hand in her friendly way and said: 

“ Isn’t this Mr. Whitney?” and when he 


266 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


nodded his head and took her hand, she con¬ 
tinued. “I’m Winona Merriam and these are 
my friends, Louise Lane and John Van Horne. 
We have come to ask you a very great favor.” 
She handed him the letter from his wife, after 
he had bowed to Louise and John and he led 
the way into the house before he opened 
the letter. 

He looked up from it, his thin face flushed 
and his brown eyes keenly lighted behind his 
thick glasses. 

“ Have you the letters and diary with you?” 
he asked, and then noticing the brown paper 
parcel under John’s arm, he added: “ Ah, yes, 
I see you have.” 

The room he had led them to first was a 
large, rather long one, with old-fashioned glass 
chandeliers and long windows almost to the 
ground and two or three mirrors in heavy gold- 
leaf frames. The furniture was swathed in 
summer covers and the real beauty of the 
chandeliers and the mirrors was partly dimmed 
by coverings of mosquito netting. 

“ Come out of here!” he said hastily glanc¬ 
ing around at the inhospitable look of the 
covered furniture. “ Come into my room.” 

They followed him up a steep flight of stairs 
to the second floor and after he had flung open 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 267 


the door he stood aside to allow the girls to 
enter first. 

Glass-front cases, as high as the ceiling, 
lined the four walls. A large flap-topped desk 
littered with papers stood in the centre of the 
room and on the floor next to it were three or 
four piles of very thick books. 

But it was only a hasty glance that the girls 
were able to give the room, as interesting as it 
seemed to be, for Mr. Whitney placed chairs 
for them and then hastily took the package of 
letters from John. They sat silently watching 
him and he opened package after package and 
read the contents and then took the little brown 
diary and read that through eagerly, too. 

After he had finished with it he went back 
to the letters, keeping his finger in the open 
book and referring to it from time to time after 
he read certain letters. It seemed hours to the 
young people, watching him. But there is an 
end to all things and there came an end to his 
long silence. 

“ These are wonderful!” he cried enthusi¬ 
astically. “ Wonderful! And where did you 

say they were found?” 

" Of course they hadn’t said before where 

they had been found, and John Van Horne 
rather impatiently, leaned forward and asked 
in somewhat of a strained voice. 


268 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


“ Are they real then? And valuable?” 

“Real and valuable!” cried Mr. Whitney 
rather sharply. “ Why of course they are, 
man! ” And he repeated his question, “ Where 
did you find them?” 

Winnie related in as few words as possible 
their finding of the box in the cellar of the Van 
Horne Manor House. Mr. Whitney listened 
attentively to every detail then he turned back 
to John. 

“ If you want to sell these things to me, 
I’ll pay you well,” he said. “ Some of them 
however, I think should be turned over to the 
Congressional Library. The diary for in¬ 
stance,” and he handled the worn little 
book tenderly. 

John and the girls looked at one another in 
delight. It was wonderful! Better than any¬ 
thing they had ever thought could be found in 
the old box. Mr. Whitney seemed to wait 
impatiently for John’s answer. John however 
asked if he could go out of the room for a 
minute or two and think the matter over and 
decide what was best to do. So Mr. Whitney 
led the way to another doorway from the one 
they had entered by and carefully shut the 
large heavy door behind young Van Home 
after he had gone through. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 269 


He came back to the girls and Louise 
jumped up. 

“ May I look around?” she asked. 

“ Certainly,” he said politely and offered to 
show her the tilings most interesting, but she 
said with a shy little laugh. 

“ Thank you, but I’d just as soon browse 
around myself. I don’t know very much about 
such things and I might ask you questions that 
would make you want to kill me, in all 
my ignorance.” 

“ I’d promise not to do that,” he answered. 
“But if you prefer to be alone, you are 
quite welcome.” 

Louise went down to the other end of the 
long room to make a systematic tour around 
the four walls. Left together at the top of 
the long room, Mr. Whitney and Winona were 
practically alone. 

“You are Winona Merriam?” he asked, 
peering at her closely through his thick glasses. 

“Yes,” she answered smiling up at him. 

“ My wife mentions you in her letter,” he 
said somewhat gruffly and added: “How is 
she, and how are the children?” 

Winona only needed an opening to make 
her talk, and a subject that interested her as 
Mrs. Whitney and the children undoubtedly 
did. She had a delightful way of making 


270 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


people see things through her mind’s eyes as she 
talked. Now she told of meeting little Matilda 
on the train and of her bruised thumb and how 
this had led to their meeting Mrs. Whitney. 
Then the conversation turned to Thorndale and 
an accounting of all the things that had taken 
place there and because it was very fresh in 
her heart, being only a day away, she told it 
very clearly. 

He seemed very much interested and asked 
her a great many questions. He sat in silence 
for a time after she had told him the story of 
Mrs. Van Duesen and the highboy and laughed 
over Mrs. Van Duesen’s parting words. Then 
suddenly he said: 

“You seem like a kind and sensible girl. I 
think I can trust you with a secret. Something 
which is quite near my heart.” 

Winnie didn’t say anything, only nodded 
her head a little as he looked inquiringly at her 
as he spoke. He got up an pulled his chair a 
trifle closer to hers, after taking a hasty glance 
down the room to where Louise was standing, 
apparently engrossed, in the contents of one of 
the tall glass-fronted cases. 

“ A year ago,” he said in his dry, somewhat 
detached way, 4 'my wife and I were sepa¬ 
rated. Nothing legal of course; she simply 
felt that I was too deeply engrossed in my 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 271 


hobby for my own good. She worried con¬ 
tinually about my health, and, I thought then, 
fussed a great deal trying to keep me well. 
There was always something she wanted me to 
do, something hot to drink before I went to 
bed, or to remember to put on rubbers when I 
went out, and one thing that bothered me more 
than anything else was that she always called 
me sharply at eleven thirty to go to bed. 
Sometimes I would become so wrapped up in 
a volume of some sort pertaining to the sub¬ 
ject I am so interested in, that I would find 
these little attentions very annoying. I know 
now that I must have been terribly irritable. 
And one night I became furiously angry, and 
spoke more bitterly to her than I had intended 
to do. It cut her to the heart, for up until then 
I had tried to hide my irritation from her, and 
now it came like a bolt from the blue, suddenly 
and shockingly. Well, to make a long story 
short, she took the children and left the house 
the next day, saying that she never realized 
that she had been in the way and that she would 
remain apart from me until I felt that I needed 
her back. She had no more than closed the 
door than I wanted her back, of course, but I 
was too proud to follow her as I was tempted to 
do, and beg her to return. So I let her go. 
From that day to this she does not know how I 


272 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


feel. I still find it hard to admit being in the 
wrong. After all it was she who left me.” 

Winona jumped up and went over to him. 

“ Mr. Whitney,” she said in a low voice. 
“I’m sure that Mrs. Whitney, like you, is too 
proud to make the first advances. Oh, couldn’t 
you, for the children’s sake, say the first word? 
All three of them love you dearly. We know, 
because all three of them have told me! ” 

Mr. Whitney looked up quickly. 

“ Do you mean that? ” he cried. “ Did she 
say that she loved me?” 

“Yes,” Winona said stoutly. “ She did. 
The day she gave me the letter to give you, 
she told me that you were the cleverest and 
kindest man in the world and that she 
loved you.” 

Ten years seemed to slip from Mr. 
Whitney’s shoulders as he jumped up from his 
chair and started to pace the floor, his hands 
buried deep in his pockets. 

“ She does love me,” he repeated several 
times to himself as he walked back and forth, 
He lingered over the words as though he 
found them very sweet to say. 

John Van Home knocked on the door just 
then and came into the room. 

“ I’ve decided,” he said firmly. “ If I 
can call father up at the hotel where we 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 273 


are staying, I’ll ask him to take a taxi and 
come right over. I didn’t bring him with me 
because I was afraid they might not be real, 
and I didn’t want him to be here when you 
told me that!’* 

Mr. Whitney pointed to his desk, which 
had a telephone on it, and John went over and 
soon had arranged with his father to join them 
in ten minutes. Nothing more was said by the 
girls and Mr. Whitney of the conversation 
they had been having. He walked around 
the room with the three of them showing 
them his treasures. It was indeed a 
wonderful collection and he had just reason 
to be proud of it. He was pointing out 
a vacant place on one of the lower shelves 
where he was planning to put the letters of 
Benedict Arnold and Robert Morris, when the 
bell rang, and he went down to let in old Mr. 
Van Horne. 


18 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


% 


It took about an hour for the three men 
to complete their business. Mr. Whitney 
bought one of each of the letters and paid, what 
seemed to the girls and the Van Hornes, an 
exorbitant price for them. Then he called a 
taxi and offered to accompany them to a 
dealer on Fifth Avenue where he knew they 
would get the highest prices for some of the 
other letters. 

“ That diary should go to the Congres¬ 
sional Library in Washington!” he said as 
they drove off. “Also the command from 
Washington.” 

But the elder Van Horne held out when it 
came to the question of selling the diary. He 
wanted to keep that for himself. After all, a 
diary is a diary, and a personal accounting of 
his great-great-grandfather’s life seemed too 
precious a thing to let go out of the family. 

After they had been politely interviewed 
by the famous Fifth Avenue dealer and with 
his personal check tucked away in young Van 
Horne’s bill-fold, had come out of the rather 
gloomy interior of his office, into the bright- 

274 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 275 

ness of Fifth Avenue, Louise looked down at 
her wrist watch and gave a little cry. 

“ Goodness I It’s after two and we 

promised Helen to be home for lunch.” 

“ I told her not to expect us later than one,” 
Winnie said. “ I was pretty sure we would be 
late with all the business we had to attend to.” 

Then we ll have lunch somewhere to¬ 
gether and make it a regular spree!” cried 
young Van Horne enthusiastically. “ But is 
there anyone you would like especially to 
join us? 

“ Of course they’d both like it better if they 
had their young friend Helen along,” Mr. Van 
Horne said. “I’m sure they feel badly think¬ 
ing of her sitting waiting for them.” 

“ That’s perfectly true, we do!” Louise 
said, but added: “ The trouble is we haven’t any 
telephone in the Little Crooked House.” 

“ We’ll have her with us inside of an hour!” 
cried young Van Horne boyishly, and dashed 
into a Western Union office which they 
happened to be passing at the time. Two 
minutes later he dashed out again, closely 
followed by a boy in a blue uniform. 

“ Quick, give me her address!” he cried to 
Winona who hurried, scribbled it down on the 
card he held out to her. He took it and gave 
it to the boy and slipped a couple of bills into 


276 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

the eager and rather dirty hand. Like a shot 
the boy was off, running as fast as his blue legs 
could carry him toward Broadway and the 
nearest subway. 

“ What did you say in the message ?” 
Louise asked, more from idle curiosity than 
anything else. 

“ I told her to meet us at Delmonicos,” he 
said taking Louise’s arm and walking on a- 
liead with her, leaving Winnie to follow with 
the father, and Mr. Whitney who agreed to 
join them. 

‘'I’ve never been there,” Louise said in¬ 
genuously. “ And I’ve always wanted to go.” 

“Everything comes to him who waits!” 
John quoted lightly. And led her up the few 
short steps to the entrance of the restaurant. 

The head waiter led them to a table for five, 
in a corner and they settled down to wait 
for Helen. 

The room was crowded with beautifully 
gowned women and young girls, some of the 
older women were accompanied by men, but 
others lunching alone in groups of four and 
five. The general atmosphere was one of 
gayety and Winnie looked across at Louise 
and smiled, in complete harmony with 
the surroundings. 

They ordered luncheon, the girls choosing 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 277 


things for Helen which they were sure she 
was particularly fond of, and then the business 
of the meal being attended to, they relaxed and 
proceeded to enjoy themselves. Under the 
cover of the general conversation of the other 
three, Mr. Whitney managed to say to Winona 
in a low tone: 

“I am going to Thorndale tomorrow 
morning.” 

“ Oh, I’m so glad!” she cried and her face 
beamed with happiness. 

“And thank you!” he said with a little 
effort. 

Winnie flushed and met his eyes steadily as 
she answered impulsively: 

“ I think almost any girl would have done 
the same thing in this case. I think you can 
feel things like that. I felt that you loved her 
too, and it seemed such a shame for you both to 
be separated just because of a misunderstand¬ 
ing. Life is so very short!” After she had 
said it she was afraid she had gone too far, but 
he said, looking down at his plate and crumbling 
a bit of roll as he spoke: 

“ You are right. Life is very short and I 
am sorry that I have wasted five months of it.” 

Louise spied Helen standing in the door¬ 
way looking for them and John Van Horne 


278 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


went across and brought her back to 
their table. 

“ It was lovely of you to remember me,” 
she said in her poised way, after they had in¬ 
troduced Mr. Whitney and the men were 
again seated. 

The party was made gayer by Helen’s 
presence for the girls didn’t worry about her 
being home by herself. The exceptional suc¬ 
cess of the sale of the letters had put Mr. Van 
Horne and his son into the highest spirits and 
Mr. Whitney too, with the thought of his 
coming trip seemed to shake off his rather 
diffident manner and became as interesting as 
he could be. 

Looking back on it later the girls always 
remembered it as being one of the very nicest 
parties they had ever attended. 

“ As long as we’re down-town let’s call up 
the boys and ask them to take us to the Strand,” 
Helen said, as the three of them, having left 
the men at the door of Delmonicos walked arm 
in arm together up Fifth Avenue looking 
into the shop windows. 

So she called Charles up and he got Tom 
and Billy and at seven o’clock they met at the 
entrance of the Strand Theatre. The girls 
had their supper at a soda water fountain for 
they had eaten such a large lunch that they 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 279 


were not hungry. It was quite easy to find six 
seats together for the hot summer weather 
made people seek the beaches and the lumber¬ 
ing busses and sight-seeing machines and the 
theatre was not crowded. But the theatre was 
so cool and the picture so interesting and the 
music so lovely that the girls and boys de¬ 
clared they were going to spend more evenings 
there after they returned from their vacations 
and had to drag through the longest 
and undoubtedly the hottest month of the 
year, August. 

They got up very early the next morning so 
that they could get an early start to their home 
town. Helen and Charles went down with 
them to see them off and Helen felt almost too 
badly to wave a damp handkerchief after them. 
She wanted to be going home too, and as 
she and Charles turned to go out to the street 
she took his arm looking up into his face 
said wistfully: 

“ We’ll be going home soon too, won’t we? 
And we’ll have at least the week-end after this 
with them up there, won’t we?” 

He promised that if it were at all possible 
she should have her looked for week-end and 
they went happily back to the rather lonely 
Little Crooked House. 

“ I’m going to tell you both something,” 


280 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Winnie said, leaning her head luxuriously 
back against the soft cushion of her train seat 
and looking at Tom and Louise across from 
her on a turned back seat. 

Go onl ” commanded Louise. “ I’m pretty 
sure it s a plan, but we can stand that. I’ve 
seen you put so many plans across that I have 
reached the stage where I only lay awake the 
first three nights after you tell me about them, 


worrying about what will happen if they don’t 
go through.” 

Winnie laughed good-naturedly at Louise’s 
ragging and went on to tell her and Tom about 
Mr. Whitney. Louise was as deeply thrilled 
and pleased as Winnie herself had been, and 
even Tom, the staid and never-getting-excited- 
person that he was, showed signs of approving 
of it all. 


Their car happened to be the last one, so 
when the train stopped at their station they 
scrambled out way down at the far end and 
had to walk the entire length of the platform 
to get to the trolley which met all the trains 
and happened to take them directly past 
their homes. 

Tom was walking ahead rather slowly and 
with his head bent, for he carried their three 
bags and they were all heavy. Louise and 
Winona followed behind with a fourth which 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 281 


they were trying to carry together. They 
noticed a group of people at the far end of the 
platform but thought they were like themselves 
hurrying for the trolley and so paid very little 
attention to them. So when they heard a 
whoop in their ears and eager hands tried to 
take the bags from them, they were very much 
surprised. For the group consisted of Mr. and 
Mrs. Merriam, Florence, all of Louise’s 
brothers and sisters, Mrs. Bryan, Helen’s step¬ 
mother, once leader of the old Camp Karonya, 
Marie Hunter and Edith Hillis, Adelaide 
Hughes, and her younger sister Francis, and 
lots of other boy and girl friends of the be¬ 
wildered trio, who now stood in a dazed stupid 
looking row, trying to get used to so many 
faces and answer so many greetings. 

But it didn’t take them long to get over their 
first surprise. They were as delighted to be seen 
as apparently their friends were to see them. 
Several people had driven down the boys and 
girls in their cars and now, spurning the little 
trolley which was still waiting patiently for 
them to make up their minds, climbed back 
into the automobiles and proceeded to drive 
swiftly away from the station. 

“Why the swift flight of the swallows?” 
Louise asked, looking inquiringly around at 
the circle of faces of her family and Mr. and 


282 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Mrs. Merriam. “ Edith Hillis was right in the 
middle of saying she wouldn’t have known me, 
when Marie whisked her off. I’d have liked 
to have heard why she wouldn’t have known me, 
whether it was because I was fatter or thinner, 
which I hope to goodness and flatter myself at 
the same time, that I am!” 

Everyone laughed. It is very easy to 
laugh when you are happy and the group 
gathered around the young people were 
certainly so. 

“You have made us very happy,” Mrs. 
Merriam whispered to Louise a little while 
later as they rode up together in Louise’s 
father’s car. Louise blushed and ducked her 
head a minute to press a grateful little kiss on 
Mrs. Merriam’s cheek. 

“ Tom’s father and I have hoped for a long 
time that this would happen,” Mrs. Merriam 
continued. “ I shall love having you for a 
daughter almost as much as Winnie will love 
having you for her sister.” 

“So that was why everyone met us at the 
station!” Winnie cried. “They know of 
Louise’s and Tom’s engagement!” 

“ Of course,” said Mrs. Merriam. “ And 
they are all delighted too.” 

The car drove up to the Merriam’s house 
first to let out Winnie and her mother and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 283 

father, and Tom. Florence had dashed away 
in one of the other cars with some of her young 
friends and now hopping up and down first on 
one foot then on the other, seemingly unable to 
wait for them to alight and come into the house. 

“ You will come in too, dear,” Mrs. 
Merriam said, turning to Louise. “Your 
father and mother are waiting for you here. 
They couldn’t get down to the train to meet 
you with the rest of us.” 

Louise waited for no second invitation to 
jump out and run into the house where her 
father and mother were waiting for her. There 
was a strong bond especially between the father 
and daughter and Louise’s plan was to get 
enough business experience to be able to take 
over the responsibility of the large store her 
father owned. Her brothers had all chosen 
professional careers and this fact had been a 
■deep disappointment to Mr. Lane. 

Louise and Mr. and Mrs. Lane and the 
brothers and sisters finally walked over to their 
own home. Louise was the centre of the 
affectionate group and as they went together 
down the shady street she took her father’s 
arm and gave a little prance from sheer light¬ 
ness of heart. 

“ I’m so glad to be home again, and every¬ 
one is so kind,” she said, and Mr. Lane pressed 


284 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


her arm affectionately and the others smiled 
back at them. 

Everyone left the girls and Tom alone that 
first evening, and they stayed with their re¬ 
spective families. But the following evening, 
after a great deal of mysterious telephoning 
between the two houses and running up and 
down stairs with covered things, hardly hidden 
under aprons, on the part of Louise’s sister and 
Florence and Mrs. Merriam, a large square 
white envelope was pushed under the door of 
Winnie’s room, where Louise, who ran over to 
get away from the feeling of being out of 
things, was sitting with her friend. They had 
been discussing their homes and the changes 
they had found in the girls and boys who had 
met them at the station and had both almost 
forgotten the rather hurt way they had felt at 
being treated as though they were strangers 
and not allowed in on any of the exciting 
secrets the two families seemed to be whisper¬ 
ing about continuously. 

Louise had her back to the door, as she was 
sitting on the window-seat idly playing with 
the cord on the shade and looking out into the 
darkness of the moonless night. Winnie was 
busy sewing and so did not notice the envelope 
either, as it lay near the door. It must have 
been a good hour after it had been slipped 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 285 


under the door that Louise got up and walked 
over to the dressing table and as she did so 
passed it and stooped and picked it up. 

“ What is this?” she asked looking at 
Winnie as though she expected to find the 
solution of the secret written on her 
friend’s face. 

Winnie shook her head. “ I’m sure I don’t 
know,” she said. “ Why don’t you open it? ” 

“ That’s a good idea,” Louise said dryly, 
and proceeded to tear off the end of the en¬ 
velope and shake out its contents. She un¬ 
folded a thick sheet of writing paper on which 
was printed: 

“ There will be a meeting of the Camp Fire 
at nine o’clock. Please try to be there 
promptly.” 

“The Camp Fire!” Winnie cried in 
amazement. “ What can that mean? It can’t 
be ours , Camp Karonya, for that had been dis¬ 
banded for ages. It must be Florence’s 
or-1 

Louise looked at her wrist watch and 
hurried to- the door. 

“ A Camp Fire is a Camp Fire for a’ that!” 
she cried, and added: “ And its rules must be 
obeyed. It’s two minutes to nine now.” 

Winona followed her closely down the 
stairs. At the door of the living room they 



286 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


hesitated and looked in. The room was dark 
save for the light from a leaping wood fire in 
the large stone fireplace. Somewhere in the 
soft darkness someone was beating a drum. 
The girls hearts gave a little leap of happiness 
at the sound, for the drum beating called them 
to their Camp Fire meetings and suddenly the 
curtain of the years that had seemed to shut 
them away from their Camp Fire days and all 
that they had meant to them, rolled away. In 
their hearts was the same thrill that the sound 
of the drum had awakened there years ago 
when they had had their first meeting at 
Winnie’s house in this same room. 

“ Oh, Louise isn’t it lovely?” Winona said 
with a suspicion of tears in her voice. 
“ They’ve opened the door into the past for us 
and we can go through for awhile.” 

Louise didn’t answer, she only took 
Winnie’s hand and gripped it tightly and 
Winnie knew that she understood. 

Their eyes were accustomed to the dark¬ 
ness by this time and the black shadows in the 
room assumed the shapes of girls sitting cross- 
legged in a circle on the floor. Rather shyly 
Winona and Louise went forward to the vacant 
places left them. As they looked around and 
their gaze rested first of all upon Helen Bryan, 
Grace’s step-mother, Mrs. Bryan, who had 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 287 


been their first Guardian and had helped them 
organize and start their Camp Fire. They 
looked at her affectionately now, as she stood 
in her straight brownish gown with its deep 
fringes at the bottom. 

“Welcome!” she said in her clear voice. 
“ Welcome back into the circle of the 
Camp Fire.” 

“ It is our Camp Fire!” Winona whispered 
excitedly to Louise, for she had time by now 
to look around and recognize the girls sitting 
on the floor. 

Mrs. Bryan heard Winona’s whisper and 
looked at her and smiled. 

“ Yes, it is our own Camp Fire,” she said. 
“No doubt you are all somewhat surprised to 
be called to a meeting of it for it has been dis¬ 
banded for such a long time. But I wanted to 
call this meeting, which may be the last one we 
shall ever have, for reasons of my own.” 

She paused for a minute as though to 
collect her thoughts and Winona looked around 
the circle of girlish faces. In the dancing light 
of the fire the faces seemed almost childlike 
and for a moment Winnie imagined herself 
back in the old days. She sat watching them, 
happy in her day dream, and then Mrs. Bryan 

began to speak again. 

“ Sisters of the Camp Fire,” she said, “ I 


£88 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


have wanted for a long time to call you to¬ 
gether so that I could tell you, from the bottom 
of my heart, how proud I am of you all. We 
have been separated, we have returned, each 
with a greater knowledge of life, each with a 
clearer vision and a broader understanding. 
Several of you have had your dearest dreams 
come true. The dreams you found the 
material for here in our Camp Fire Circle. 
Some of you are still dreaming, some are wait¬ 
ing almost impatiently for their dreams to 
come true. I have watched you all, I know I 
speak truly. I think that it may help the girls 
who are still waiting, perhaps feeling dis¬ 
couraged and that it is ahnost impossible to go 
on, to hear the realized dreams of some of you 
more fortunate ones. Therefore I am going 
to ask you each to tell your dearest dream and 
the outcome of it.” 

Winnie sat up very straight and watched 
Mrs. Bryan’s face earnestly. Dreams! Why, 
Mrs. Bryan was saying almost the same 
thing about them that Billy Lee had said! He 
must have been right after all. 

Mrs. Bryan glanced around the group and 
nodded to Marie Hunter. 

“Will you begin, Marie?” she asked. 

Marie arose to her feet. 

“ I’d love to.” she said, and then added 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 289 

modestly: “I’m afraid my dream was a very 
ambitious one for me to have. I think you 
have all known that I always wanted to be¬ 
come a writer. I remember how you used to 
tease me and call me a book-worm and how I 
always was going around reading everything 
I could lay my hands on. Louise used to say 
that if I couldn’t get anything else, I’d read 
the testimonials on the Vanilla Extract bottles 
or in the back of the kitchen almanac, some¬ 
thing that nobody else in the world ever did!” 

The girls laughed, for they remembered 
well Marie’s passion for reading. 

“Well,” Marie went on looking down at 
her hands which were clasped before her, “ I 
used to lie in bed at night and plan how I would 
become a famous author and how someday I 
would come to a meeting just as though noth¬ 
ing had happened, and say nonchalantly during 
a pause, Well girls, I’ve sold a story to each 
of the leading magazines, I’ve had a play 
accepted and coming out on Broadway next 
month, it’s in rehearsal now, and I’ve a book of 
poems accepted and coming out in the spring, 
and at present I am working on a novel, which 
my publisher says is going to be the most 
popular and most discussed book ever printed 
in America. That was a modest enough 
dream wasn’t it? Then of course you were all 

19 


290 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


to dash up and make a terrible fuss over me, 
and that was that! I’m afraid I always liked 
that part of the dream best. Anyway, dreams 
come true. I know. Because here is the Camp 
Fire, here are you all, with the exception of 
Nataly Lee and Helen Bryan, and here am I 
now standing before you to tell you, that I’ve 
had my first story accepted, and although it 
isn’t by one of the leading magazines, and I 
haven’t even received my check for it yet and 
have no idea when I will, I am as pleased and 
happy as I can be and every bit as proud as I 
would have been with all my other ambitions 
realized too. Now, all I have to wait for to have 
my dream complete, are your congratulations.” 

Of course the girls all jumped up and 
dashed over to her and made a terrible fuss 
over her, and Louise capped the climax by 
begging for her signature, then and there, and 
vowing she would value it as her dearest 
possession ever after. After the excitement 
had died down a bit and the girls were again 
seated in the circle but still talking excitedly 
about Marie’s success, Mrs. Bryan raised her 
hand for silence and asked Edith Hillis if she 
would talk to them next. 

Edith Hillis was small and fair and fluffy. 
She had a childish, naive way of looking at life 
in general and as is so often the case, was 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 291 


terribly fond of Marie Hunter, who was her 
exact opposite. Edith had gone to college only 
because of Marie, and her first six months had 
been none to easy. She had always been in¬ 
terested in dancing and decided that as long 
as she couldn’t be a shining light in her classes 
at least she could specialize in aesthetic danc¬ 
ing, which she immediately began to do. She 
looked scarcely more than a child as she stood 
up to talk to the girls. 

“ My dream, although quite as ambitious as 
Marie’s, w r as never as firmly fixed in my mind 
as hers. I used to think that some day I’d be 
a famous dancer, and then after I had the cos¬ 
tume all planned for my debut, I’d think how 
lonely I’d be, being a dancer all by myself, day 
after day, traveling alone and having to go all 
over the country and leave everyone I liked the 
best, for ages. Then I’d think to myself, I 
guess I’ll be an author. There’s lots of demand 
for light fiction. And then, I could live with 
Marie Hunter in New York in a nice apart¬ 
ment with a kitchenette. So you see, I wasn’t 
always true to my dream. But the next day I’d 
go to my class in Journalism and I’d come out 
in tears vowing never to become anything but 
a dancer, and that if dancing would take me 
away from the hateful Professor of Journalism, 
I’d get a position that would take me to 


292 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

California at once. I’d get a little praise later 
from my dancing teacher and I’d be gayly off 
on my dancing dream again. I kept that up 
for ages, the Journalism Professor frankly told 
me there was no use in my trying to be a 
writer. I’d decided that dancing was for me 
after all. And now do you know what has 
happened? It seems almost too good to be 
true. I’ve had a small part offered me in a 
New York production and I’m to have an 
apartment with Marie in New York. Oh, I’m 
so happy about it all.” 

The girls were delighted and Louise begged 
Edith to tell them if she had planned her cos¬ 
tume for her debut yet. Edith said she had, 
and added that she was planning to send the 
girls tickets for the opening night, which was to 
be the following month. 

Adelaide next!” Mrs. Bryan said, and 
Adelaide, a tall, thin red-brown-haired girl 
stood up in her place and smiled around at the 
friendly faces. 

“I’m afraid my dream will sound very dull 
after Marie’s and Edith’s,” she said, “ and be¬ 
sides it really wasn’t my own dream. I think 
you will all remember that I used to feel 
terribly bad because I was poorer than the 
rest of you, and I wanted to be able to give 
better parties and have pretty dresses and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 293 


things like that, but I didn’t know how to 
dream in those days. I simply used to sit 
around and feel sorry for myself and the 
children and think it was a shame that we didn’t 
have as much as the rest of you. And then one 
day I determined that Lonny and Frances 
should have more than I had ever had. Then 
Louise and Winona helped me by telling me 
what I could do. From that time on I began 
to dream. I began to make money and I got 
Frances pretty clothes and I gave nice parties 
and I’ve been able to help both Lonny and 
Franees through college. I made up my mind 
they would have things and they have. I’m 
sorry I haven’t any surprise in store for you. 
Making jams and cakes and running a 
cafeteria is a paying business but it doesn’t 
sound very exciting. You’ve all known about 
this, so you won’t be surprised. But it has 
been a lovely dream and I have been happy 
dreaming it. I’m sorry I haven’t anything else 
to tell you.” 

She sat down and the congratulations she 
received were given in a deeper, gentler way 
than those the other girls had had. The Camp 
Fire circle remembered the hard work and love 
that had gone into the realization of Adelaide’s 
dream and they tried to tell her that they knew. 

“ I have a letter from Nataly,” Mrs. Bryan 


294 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


said after awhile, smiling somewhat ruefully as 
she glanced down at it in her hand. 

“ Dear Opeechee and Girls,” she read. “ I 
am sorry that I can’t get up to the Camp Fire 
meeting. I planned to, but something has in¬ 
tervened, I would have liked to have seen the 
girls, especially when I tell them my news. 
I’m engaged! I know the girls are going to be 
green with envy for I suppose none of 
them have thought of such a thing. 
My fiance’s name is Richard Hardwick 
Randolph Rochester.” 

“Is she marrying a king with all those 
names?” Louise said in a whisper to Winona 
w r ho nodded her head gayly. 

“ He is a millionaire,” Mrs. Bryan went on 
and again Louise looked at Winona and smiled 
knowingly. The smile said as plainly as 
words. “ How like sweet Nataly.” 

Nataly Lee had always been a very languid, 
very fine-lady kind of girl. She Was always 
inclined to think that her affairs were the most 
important in the world and that every¬ 
one was tremendously interested in them. 
She evidently thought so still, for she went into 
detailed accounts of Richard Hardwick 
Randolph Rochester’s habits, personal feelings, 
looks, family connections and finally wound up 
with a detailed account of what he had said 


, WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 295 

and what she had said when he proposed to her. 

There was a little burst of applause after 
Mrs. Bryan finished but there was little en¬ 
thusiasm in them. 

“ I think it is hardly necessary for me to 
tell you all that Helen is living in the very 
middle of her dream at this minute,” Mrs. 
Bryan went on, referring to the other empty 
place in the Circle. “ She sent a telegram ask¬ 
ing me to give you all her love and to tell you 
how disappointed she is not being with you.” 

Everyone was really sorry that Helen 
wasn’t able to be there. She had always been 
a favorite with the girls. Mrs. Bryan sat down 
and another girl told of her dream. At last 
Louise’s turn came. She got up and stood be¬ 
fore them half laughing, half serious. 

“ I know you girls are going to be green 
with envy,” she began, quoting from Nataly’s 
letter. “ I’m engaged!” 

She paused and looked all around but one 
or two girls called out: “ We know it!” 

“ Well, as long as none of you will turn 
green with envy, I’ll go on. No doubt I shall 
be thought bold and unmaidenly by some of you 
but I can’t help that! The truth of the matter 
is that my dream has been a very material one 
for a long, long time. It had heighth and 
breadth, hair, eyes and beautiful teeth and it 


296 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


answers to the name of Tom Merriam. Added 
to the above charms it is Winona Merriam’s 
brother, and therefore has a decided added 
attraction to me. And now I have my dream 
and I hope I’m going to marry it very soon. 
I thank you.” 

She made a funny little bow and dropped 
down on the floor again while Edith 
Hillis cried: 

“ Louise! I never thought it of you! To 
stand before the entire Camp Fire and confess 
that you’ve been dreaming about Tom Merriam 
for years! I honestly can’t believe it!” 

“Oh, love is a terrible thing!” Louise 
quoted lightly. “ Wait until it comes to you. 
You’ll find it hard not to take everyone in your 
audience, into your confidence, when you are 
dancing, and tell them all about your lover. 
Look at Nataly, she spared us nothing of 
Richard Hardwick Randolph Rochester’s past 
present or future.” 

Mrs. Bryan smiled and then she said: 

“ Louise is right, Edith. Love isn’t any¬ 
thing to be ashamed of. So many people think 
it ought to be secondary in life. It is the 
biggest thing that ever comes to any of us and 
we should be glad and proud of It. We 
oughtn’t to be so silly about it. I don’t mean 
that. We oughtn’t to sit around all day moon- 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 297 

ing over a fiance’s picture or the last letter he 
wrote but we ought to consider love a gift and 
treat it as such. I hope that it will come to 
you all sometime and that you recognize it at 
once. But until it does, be true to your ideal 
of it. That is all I ask. ,, 

“ And now for Winona’s dream,” she 
said affectionately. 

Winona looked helplessly all around. “ I 
don’t know what to do,” she said. 44 I’ve been 
trying to remember a dream as I listened to 
yours and I honestly can’t. There has been 
first one thing and then another and I don’t 
ever seem to have had a dream that lasted.” 

Mrs. Bryan broke in and said: 

44 Perhaps I can help you, Winnie.” 

Winona looked at her gratefully, and Mrs. 
Bryan continued. 

44 Last winter I believe Winona dreamed 
the largest dream she ever had. Down deep in 
all of our hearts is a feeling that we want to 
help those more needy than ourselves. I think 
that everyone has it sometime or another. 
Some of us never can do anything about it. 
Others simply keep putting it off and thinking 
they’ll look around the next day and find a way 
to help, in these cases sometimes they put it 
off so long that it fades and they forget all 
about it and go on to something else. But 


298 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Winona, and Louise too, put their hearts and 
minds to helping and they found a place where 
they could. And then came two opportunities 
to Winona to choose between her work and a 
life of decided pleasure and what is known as 
ease. But her dream of helping others was so 
deeply implanted in her heart that without 
hesitation she decided to stay at the Garnett 
Neighborhood House and help as much as she 
could the people in that poor section of New 
York. She was true to her dream, and she was 
true to her Camp Fire ideals.” 

Here she stopped, for Winnie had 
scrambled to her feet and was now standing 
with her cheeks flushed, waiting for a chance 
to speak: 

“ Oh, Opeechee dear!” she cried, “ I don’t 
deserve any praise. Honestly I don’t. It 
really took me an awfully long time to make 
up my mind and there have been lots of times, 
especially lately, when I’ve wondered if I did 
right in choosing my work in the Garnett 
House. So you see, all of you, that I’m really 
not worthy of any praise at all!” 

“You are too,” Louise said stoutly, 
“ You’re lots more deserving than almost any¬ 
one else here. I’ll frankly tell everyone that 
if I had had the opportunity to go south or to 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 299 


England, I would have packed my little bag 
and camped at the station or the dock so the 
person I was going with would have had to 
have taken me, because of a scene if they tried 
to stop me.” 

They all laughed and it was evident they 
agreed with Louise, for Winona was the centre 
of the laughing congratulating group in 
a minute. 

“ But what shall I do?” she managed to say 
a little while later looking all around at them 
but letting her eyes rest the longest on Mrs. 
Bryan as though asking for help. “ I haven 4 1 
any dream now, honestly I haven’t. Where 
can I find one?” 

Mrs. Bryan shook her head and said lightly. 

“We’ll talk it over some time, Winnie 
dear,” and let it go at that. 

It was Marie Hunter who proposed that 
they sing their cheer, and they were at once all 
on their feet and gathered around their 
Guardian. None of them had forgotten 
the words: 

“ Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo for work, 

Wohelo for health, 

Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for love!” 


300 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


they sang in unison. Then someone turned on 
the lights and Florence and Mrs. Merriam 
came in with plates of sandwiches and glass 
pitchers of lemonade. 

As she bent to kiss Winona goodnight a 
little while later, Mrs. Bryan whispered in 
her ear: 

“ Come and see me tomorrow if you have 
time.” And Winnie whispered: “Yes.” 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

After they had gone Mrs. Merriam called 
Winona. She was sitting before the dull 
ashes in the fireplace and although it was July, 
it had been such a cold wet day that the warmth 
of the fire had been pleasant. Winnie sat down 
at her feet, and rested her head against her 
mother’s knees. It was the way she had always 
loved to sit when she was small and she could 
feel a little-girl feeling slipping over her. 

Mrs. Merriam rested a gentle hand on 
Winona’s brown hair and smoothed it lovingly. 
Neither spoke for awhile, watching the pictures 
of her own imagination in the rapidly greying 
ashes. Then Winona said in a low voice: 

“ Mother, it was a lovely meeting tonight. 
I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to feel as 
happy with new people as I do with the Camp 
Fire girls, and Opeechee is such a darling. 
But I’m worried about myself. Tonight when 
every girl told her dream, I didn’t have any 
when it came to my turn. I never used to be that 
way. I always was so stire of everything when 
I was younger. But lately, there seem to be 
two me’s living inside my body. Oh, Mother, 
what do you think it is? I’m not so happy, 
being this way.” 


SOI 


302 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Mrs. Merriam stroked Winona’s hair with¬ 
out answering for awhile, then she said: 

“ Ever since you were a little girl you have 
been a dreamer. Did you ever happen to think 
that perhaps you’ve had more realized than 
most people. Every time you have a plan, it 
was a dream. And think of all the plans you 
have had work out! I don’t think there is any¬ 
thing to worry about. I think you have just 
reached the place now in your life when you 
aren’t quite sure where to turn next for a new 
dream. Perhaps you have one deep down in 
your heart that no one knows about but you. 
Perhaps you are not quite sure it is there, your¬ 
self. Is there anything you would like to talk 
over with me?” 

Winona sat up and turned around so that 
she could lean her folded arms on her mother’s 
lap and look directly up into her face. 

“Do you know, Mother, Billy Lee said 
almost exactly the same thing to me, last week 
up in Thorndale. Opeechee said it tonight at 
the Camp Fire. Now, you are saying it. 
There must be something to it. Louise said 
she used to feel the same way I do. As though 
she was waiting for a curtain to go up. I feel 
all neat and tidy inside of me, and waiting for 
something. Oh, waiting so hard for some¬ 
thing, that I’m afraid to go away from my 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 303 


neat and tidy mind for a minute, lest I should 
be out when this something I am waiting for 
comes. It’s an awfully funny feeling. But I 
asked her tonight if she still felt that way and 
she laughed and said not since she had become 
engaged to Tom.” 

Mrs. Merriam smiled tenderly. 

“ She’s found a new dream, you see,” she 
said gently. 

“ Oh, she told the entire meeting this even¬ 
ing that Tom had been her dream for years!” 
Winona said, half laughing at the remembrance 
of Louise’s confession. 

“ She couldn’t be quite sure of it, until Tom 
asked her to marry him,” Mrs. Merriam went 
on to explain. “ I think the proposal was the 
curtain she was waiting for to go up. Perhaps 
yours will go up soon, too.” 

But Winnie shook her head. 

Not if the curtain is a proposal!” she said 
ligntly. “If it’s wanting someone to propose to 
me I’m sure that can’t be the reason. I don’t 
know of a person I think of the way Louise 
does Tom and Helen does Charles. I’m fond 
of so many people! But love, I don’t honestly 
think I know what it means, outside of my own 
family and Louise, though I suppose you’d 
call her my own family now.” 

“ Well, you are too young to worry about 


304 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


it now,” Mrs. Merriam said sensibly, and 
turned the conversation to Florence. 

“ She seems to be much happier and gayer,” 
Winona said warmly. “ She was perfectly 
sweet tonight to the girls and helped with the 
refreshments like a little angel. But tell me, 
what has happened to Professor Joyce? You 
never mentioned him in any of your letters.” 

“ His wife and children live here now, too,” 
Mrs. Merriam said. “ They came from Plain- 
field directly after school closed. Someone 
finally rented their cottage there. Florence 
has become very friendly with Mrs. Joyce. She 
gives her now almost as much love and admira¬ 
tion as she did the Professor.” 

Winona sighed. 

“ Florence is such an extremist,” she said. 
“ It seems so long ago that she came down to 
stay with us to get over her love affair with the 
Professor. I often wonder if she took it very 
much to heart.” 

“ It is hard to tell with Florence,” Mrs. 
Merriam said, knitting her brows in thought. 
“ She was terribly infatuated by him, but as far 
as I know, she came home from her visit to you, 
completely cured, and the next day, almost, 
Andrew came up to see her and has been com¬ 
ing ever since.” 

“ Tom said she was simply infatuated with 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 305 


the Professor because he was the first man out 
of his teens to talk to her besides father,” 
Winnie said laughingly. 

“ I think Tom was right,” Mrs. Merriam 
said. “ Affairs like that are never serious. He 
is old enough almost to be her father.” 

“ Has Andrew been up here lately?” 
Winona asked, smiling to herself at the 
memory of the red-haired, deep-dimpled, 
happy-go-lucky Andrew. 

“ Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Merriam said. “ He 
was out only last week for dinner and this 
spring he came to several of the high school 
baseball games. The boys and girls seem to 
like him and I think Florence likes it because he 
is on the same paper with Tom and although 
he’s really only their ages, he is quite looked 
up to as a man of the world by the high 
school boys.” 

Winona couldn’t help laughing. She loved 
her mother’s sense of humor which could al¬ 
ways see the funny side of things. She knew 
just how Florence was lording it over the 
others and how much she was enjoying it. 

“ Well Andrew can’t bring her to any 
harm,” she said, reaching up to kiss her 
mother’s thin cheek affectionately. “ Poor 
mother, you’ll soon have Tom off your hands, 
and I don’t suppose Florence will sow any 
20 


306 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


more wild oats, and I promise you I ’ll be good— 
and then you’ll have a little chance to rest and 
not worry about any of us for a time.” 

Mrs. Merriam looked up at Winona and 
smiled happily. 

“ Worries about your children aren’t really 
worries,” she said softly. “ No matter how 
dark things may look, down deep in every 
mother’s heart is the fact that she is mighty 
glad she had children to worry about. Every¬ 
one says this. You wait and see.” 

Tom came in just then from taking Louise 
home and now he came over and put an 
affectionate arm around his mother’s shoulders. 
She stood up and Winona linked her arm 
through her’s and the three of them walked to¬ 
gether out into the hall. Mr. Merriam came 
out of his study just then, and said laughingly 
that they looked like the picture of the 
Gracchi, only Tom and Winona were pretty 
good-sized jewels. 

Winona kissed her mother goodnight at 
the doorway of her own little pink room. Then' 
she went in and closed her door. 

The room had been kept exactly as she had 
left it, when she had gone down to New York 
to live in the Little Crooked House. Its pink 
draperies were somewhat faded and there 
were dark patches on the wall where pictures 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 307 


had been removed to be taken with her to New 
York. But the school and high school 
pennants were still on the walls and framed 
snap-shots hung here and there, having been 
scorned as too old fashioned to be taken to New 
York. Winona stopped now before one of 
them. It was a group of the Camp Fire girls 
with their Guardian. It had been taken soon 
after they had organized it. Perhaps the girl 
who stood out most distinctly in the laughing 
group was Winnie herself. And next to her 
was Louise, short and rather stocky in those 
days, her arm thrown affectionately around 
Winnie’s shoulders. How happy they all had 
been. How they had laughed and joked about 
posing for this picture. Winnie gave the glass 
that covered it, a gentle little pat with her hand. 

She undressed slowly and after she was in 
bed with the light out, she lay awake thinking 
for a time. 

The last thing she was conscious of re¬ 
membering was repeating over and over to her¬ 
self the words of the Camp cheer: 

“ Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for aye, 

Wohelo for work, 

Wohelo for health, 

Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for love!” 

The days of their vacation passed quickly 
and soon the time came to return to the city. 


308 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

Winona went to see Mrs. Bryan as she had 
promised and had two long delightful hours 
with her. Several of the Camp Fire girls gave 
informal teas and one or two had the Circle for 
lunch. But there was no other formal meeting. 
Somehow everyone knew that the last one had 
been final. 

August mis a long hot month and life went 
along pretty much the same in the Little 
Crooked House. But with the first of Sep¬ 
tember Tom’s paper sent him to Albany to 
cover the coming State election and that left a 
room vacant. They talked it over and decided 
to find someone to take it for the two months 
Tom. would be away, although he offered to 
pay room rent. But Helen and Charles and 
Winona knew that Tom and Louise were 
saving money so that they could be married as 
soon as possible, so they didn’t want him to 
do that. 

Tom went to Albany before they were able 
to find anyone. And then one morning a deep 
black-bordered letter came for Winona. She 
looked at it lying at her place, with that quick 
little clutch at her heart that everyone ex¬ 
periences at the sight of a mourning letter. 
Next to a telegram they are the most frighten¬ 
ing things to receive. She sat down and read 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 309 

her other mail before even glancing at the 
handwriting. But finally there was nothing 
left to do but open it. She picked it up 
gingerly between her thumb and finger and 
turned it over so that she could see 
the handwriting. 

“ Oh, it’s from Sonia!” she cried, proceeding 
to tear it open hurriedly. She read it through 
then passed it to Helen and Louise. 

“ Sonia’s mother is dead,” she said 
to Charles. 

“ I wonder what she’ll do now, poor thing,” 
Helen said looking up from the letter. 

“ She’s absolutely by herself,” Winona said 
thoughtfully. “ I’m awfully sorry for her.” 

“ We’ll go up and see her after dinner to¬ 
night,” Louise said, “ That is if you want to 
go,” she added. 

Winona thanked her and then they had to 
go down to business and breakfast broke up. 

They found Sonia red-eyed and still 
hysterical, that evening when they went up to 
the little apartment she had shared with her 
mother. She had lost absolutely all control of 
her feelings and upon seeing the girls threw 
herself down upon the floor, beating it, as hard 
as she could, with her clenched fists. 

Winona and Louise looked helplessly at 
one another. Billy had called up that evening 


310 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

before they went out and Winona had told 
him where they were going so he had offered 
to take them in his car. Now, he was waiting 
down-stairs for them. Winona looked around 
and seeing an open window went over and 
looked out. She could see Billy sitting in the 
car, smoking a cigarette. Sonia’s apartment 
was only on the second floor so it was quite easy 
for Winona to raise her voice and call him. He 
looked up instantly and seeing her beckoning 
to him, he jumped out and came up the stairs 
two at a time. 

“ What’s the matter?” he asked coming 
hurriedly into the room. “ Do you need me?” 

Sonia had ceased her sobbing and now lay 
in an inert heap at their feet. Winona pointed 
to her silently. Billy bent over her. 

“ Sonia,” he said almost sharply, “ get up 
at once!” 

She seemed not to have heard him, for she 
gave no sign and still lay there. He waited for 
a minute or two then bent over and lifted her 
up in his arms and carried her to an arm chair. 
There wasn’t anything for her to do but sit up 
when he put her in a chair. But she assumed 
the most tragic pose possible, with her head 
resting back against the shabby cushion and 
her arms hanging loosely over the sides of the 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 811 


chair. Her eyes were tightly shut and to all 
appearances she had fainted. 

Billy only shook his head at Winona when 
she whispered excitedly: “ What shall we do? ” 

“ She hasn’t fainted,” he said loud enough 
for her to hear and it was evident she did, for 
she sat up and brushed her streaming hair out 
of her eyes and said in her most tragic tones: 

“I was!” 

It was all Louise could do to keep from 
laughing aloud. But Winnie felt too sorry 
for Sonia to see the funniness of it. 

“ I cannot stay here alone!” she cried 
tragically. “ I have but buried my mother to¬ 
day. I cannot stay here alone!” 

“ This is dreadful!” Winnie said to herself, 
then taking Louise over to a corner she 
whispered earnestly to her for a few minutes. 
Whatever she was saying didn’t seem to inter¬ 
est or thrill Louise very much but she finally 
seemed to agree and they came back to Billy. 

“ We’ve decided to take Sonia home with 
us,” Winona explained. “ It would be dread¬ 
ful for her to stay here alone.” 

“ Well, it is your Little Crooked House 
and I suppose you can do what you want to,” 
Billy said turning away and going toward the 
window to see if his car was still below, for the 
neighborhood was bad and leaving a good look- 


312 WINONA’S DREAM COMES TRUE 


mg car standing alone was a dangerous thing 
to do. He discovered the running board black 
with children and decided to go down and sit 
in it. 

“I’ll wait for you, and for goodness sake 
hurry,” he said as he left the apartment. 

“ I should have been all alone!” Sonia went 
on crying, wringing her hands and beginning 
to cry again now that Billy had gone. 

“ Let’s hurry up,” said Louise the practical. 

“ Where is your bag, Sonia? I’ll pack it, if 
you like.” 

Sonia pointed languidly at a door which 
apparently led into the bedroom, and then 
suddenly she was on her feet and at the door 
first. She stood with her back, to it, holding 
the knob in her hands. 

“ I shall make haste,” she said, rather 
shakily and went in and closed the door 
behind her. 

“ What do you know about that?” Louise 
said blankly, and Winona shook her head. 

It couldn’t have taken Sonia two minutes 
to pack her bag and put on her hat with its 
deep black bordered crepe veil, and come out to 
them again. 

Louise took the bag and with a girl on either 
side of her they went down the stairs. As they 
were opening the street door, a tall rather slim 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 313 


dark girl hurried up the short flight of stone 
steps of the entrance and met them face to face. 

“ Why Sonia,” she said in surprise, looking 
closely at the two girls as she spoke. “ Where 
are you going? You asked me to spend the 
night with you and here I am, but you seem to 
be going away!” 

Louise put down the bag and dropped 
Sonia’s arm. She had told them she had to be 
alone that night. Pity for Sonia never lasted 
very long as far as Louise was concerned. 

Winnie too, dropped her arm and Sonia 
stood alone facing the dark girl. 

“ I could not bear to be in that place, even 
with you,” she said, “ so when these kind friends 
offered me a place with them, I go with them.” 

“ So I see,” said the friend hotly. “ Well, 
you can go and stay for all of me,” and she 
added spitefully, turning to Winnie as she said 
it, “ I wish vou well with her. She is a leech.” 

“ That isn’t a nice way to talk to her now 
when she is in trouble!” Winona said calmly. 
“ She is so upset she doesn’t know what she is 
doing. Come on Sonia,” and she stooped and 
picked up the bag and proceeded to lead Sonia 
to Billy’s car. 

It was only Louise who caught the triumph¬ 
ant glint that shot from Sonia’s eyes as she got 
into the comfortable car. The girl still stood 


314 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


watching them, her brows knit with ill-temper 
and she too saw it, and the storm on her face 
became blacker than ever. 

“ There is nothing to do but let Winnie find 
out for herself,” Louise said with a sigh, as she 
and Billy sat together in front while Winona 
sat with grief-stricken Sonia in the rear. 

When they got home, Helen helped the 
girls prepare Tom’s room for Sonia and after 
she was established there, they held a council 
in the living room. 

“ I think she’s come to live with us for 
good!” Louise said bluntly. “There’s a look 
in her eyes.” 

“ Louise, I don’t understand why you are 
so unkind to Sonia,” Winona said almost im¬ 
patiently. “ Why is it?” 

But Louise only shook her head and didn’t 
answer. 

But it turned out that Louise was right. 
Sonia postponed her going from day to day, 
until they got so used to having her around 
that they were beginning to think no more 
about it. She had insisted upon paying board 
after she had been there several days. At first 
they had refused, then had accepted it, and she 
made arrangements to have her things sent 
from the apartment, which she had sub-let, un¬ 
til she could find another place to live. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 315 


There were one or two quite dreadful times, 
when Sonia broke every rule of simple courtesy. 
But for Winona’s sake, the others overlooked 
these things, and after awhile she became more 
accustomed to their ways. 

She must have been with them a month, 
when one day Winona received a Marconi- 
gram from Roger. It was sent to the 
Garnett House and it pleased Winona very 
much by the important-lookingness of it and 
because it was the first one she had ever seen. 
She ran to show it to Louise who admired it 
dutifully and asked: 

“Whatever does it say? You’ve showed 
me the envelope and the paper itself but you 
haven’t told me the message.” 

Winona broke into a merry laugh. 

“ How perfectly stupid of me! ” she said. 
“ It’s from Roger and he says he is docking 

this afternoon.” 

“How calmly you take it!” Louise said 
teasingly. “ I remember the time when you 
would have been dashing around in circles 
in excitement.” 

“ Oh, I’m getting more dignified,” Winona 
said lightly, flushing a little as she always did 

when Louise teased her. 

Louise took her arm affectionately and said: 
“ I’m sorry I teased. Let’s ask Mr. Collins 


316 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


if we can get off for an hour at two o’clock in¬ 
stead of our regular lunch hour at twelve.” 

“ That’s a wonderful thought!” cried 
Winona and they went and asked Mr. Collins, 
who readily agreed. 

Just as they were going down the stairs 
they met Sonia. She was coming for a class in 
Journalism, for through sheer aggressiveness 
she had made a place for herself in the Garnett 
House, and with her fine executive ability had 
organized a class which had become one of the 
features of the Neighborhood House’s volun¬ 
teer activities. 

She stood against the rail to allow them to 
pass and as Winona went by she said: 

“ We’re going down to the dock to 
meet Roger.” 

“Roger Mendon!” Sonia said suddenly 
alert, and drew her heavy black brows together. 
“ That is why you are looking so happy!” she 
said to Winnie, pointing at her flushed cheeks. 

“ Perhaps it is,” Louise answered shortly 
for her friend and took Winnie’s arm and 
hurried her out to the street. 

Sonia stood watching the door which still 
quivered from the shock of being shut so 
hurriedly by Louise. Her eyes were thought¬ 
ful as she turned to go upstairs. She was im¬ 
patient with the duller children sometimes, but 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 317 


today the entire class was aware of her irrita¬ 
bility, but being of a class in life who learn 
early to accept things with a certain calm in¬ 
difference they went about their work and 
thought no more about it than they had to. 

There was a regular old time party around 
the fire in the Little Crooked House that even¬ 
ing. Roger seemed to be more charming than 
ever and Winnie found herself comparing his 
handsome regular features with the less regular 
ones of Billy Lee. But she couldn’t have told 
herself which face she found the most pleasing. 
Roger had raised a little mustache, so small as 
to hardly change him, but still it did, in a way 
that intrigued Winona and made her watch 
him more closely than usual, trying to find 
just where the difference lay. 

Once or twice Winnie felt the piercing eyes 
of Sonia fixed on her, and strangely, it made 
her feel very uncomfortable. There was such 
a watching look in them. Finally she felt that 
she could stand them no longer so got up and 
changed her seat, going around to sit by Louise 
and hiding herself as much as possible behind 
her friend. Sometimes she almost wished that 
Sonia would take her much talked of departure. 
Tonight especially she didn’t seem to fit into 
the picture of the Little Crooked House at all. 
The evening was quite spoiled for Winona s 


318 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


She felt self-conscious and not at all at home. 
She was glad when it was over. 

Roger must have been in New York a week, 
when one day he asked Winona if she would 
have dinner and go to the theatre afterwards 
with him. She joyfully accepted. Theatres 
were a treat to the girls nowadays, for Billy 
and Tom, who generally took them, were no 
longer available, Tom being in Albany and 
Billy having to work veiy late some nights, 
so late indeed that on other nights he didn’t 
feel very much like doing anything but going 
directly to bed after his dinner. 

It was to be a dress-up party. Winona 
scurried home early from the Garnett House 
and bathed and dressed herself in her prettiest 
frock. Louise loaned her her gloves because 
they were newer than Winona’s, and Helen 
let her wear a gold bar pin of hers which 
Winona admired very much. Six o’clock came 
but no Roger. Louise posted herself where she 
could see the corner he would have to turn on 
his way from the subway. Winona sat, pre¬ 
tending to read, on the most uncomfortable 
chair in the room. It must have been fully 
quarter of seven when a taxi drew up to the 
door and Roger jumped out and told the man 
to wait. 

Louise ran to open the door for him and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 319 


Winona took a final look at herself in the long 
glass before turning to greet him. He looked 
very handsome in his evening clothes and now 
with his eyes taking in every detail of her cos¬ 
tume and seeming to approve of it all, Winona 
felt a little thrill of happiness that she was go¬ 
ing to have dinner and spend the evening 
with him. 

“ And where do you want to go to dinner?” 
he asked her later as he stood at the entrance to 
the taxi, looking in at her and waiting to 
direct the man. 

“ There is a French place I’ve always 
wanted to go to,” she answered eagerly, and 
told him the name. He directed the man and 
then got in and they rode off much to the mock 
admiration of Louise who pretended to be 
overcome by the grandness of the sight. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


Winona could never quite forget that 
dinner with Roger in the French restaurant. 
Roger exerted himself to amuse her and please 
her. She felt that she was looking and acting 
her best for Roger’s eyes told her so every- 
time she met them across the small white- 
clothed table. 

After dinner they went to the theatre and 
the early glamour of the evening was still over 
everything when, after the final curtain, they 
found themselves on Broadway. Roger sum¬ 
moned a taxi and Winona sank luxuriously 
back in the comfortableness of it. She found 
herself looking at the people walking past, or 
waiting at the crossings for the releasing 
whistle of the traffic policeman to blow, and 
though she hated herself the next minute for 
feeling as she did, she couldn’t help being glad 
that she was not one of them. The taxi turned 
into the wide entrance to Central Park at Fifty- 
ninth Street to escape the congested traffic of 
upper Broadway. The soft air of the fall 
night was almost as warm as summer and the 
top of the taxi was open and many of the trees 

320 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME,TRUE 321 

still had leaves clinging to them here and there, 
loathing to die, poor things. 

Suddenly Roger said: 

“ Winnie, aren’t you ever coming to 
England?’’ 

Winona’s mood of luxuriousness departed, 
leaving her keenly alive to the atmosphere 
which seemed suddenly to have become elec¬ 
trified. She sat up very straight and drew her 
cape a little more closely about her. She felt 
that something was going to happen, but why 
she felt as she did, she could not say. Surely 
there was nothing in Roger’s question that was 
different than when he had asked it before. 

And then something did happen. Suddenly 
and, entirely out of a clear sky. Roger turned 
to her and taking both her hands blurted out, 
in an impulsive decidedly boyish way, and not 
at all like the cooly sophisticated Roger she 
had been admiring all evening. 

“ Winnie dear, I can’t pretend any longer. 
I’ve got to tell you that I love you and that I 
have for years. Please dear, could you and 
would you ever marry me?” 

And so it had happened at last! Her first 
proposal. She was conscious of this fact, even 
while she could feel Roger’s hands gripping 
hers so hard that it hurt. And then suddenly 
she felt herself being swept along by the tide 


21 


322 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


of his emotion. She felt a little warm glow at 
her heart. Was this perhaps the beginning of 
the dream she had been waiting for? Could 
Roger and England be the new delightful 
dream where she would find all that Helen and 
Louise had found in theirs? She turned im¬ 
pulsively to Roger and smiled, a rather twisty 
little smile, and let her hands still lie im¬ 
prisoned in his while she answered him. 

“ Oh, Roger,” she said, “ I wish I knew. I 
know its a terribly silly thing to say, but I 
suppose girls will go on saying it the world 
over, forever, but really your asking me to 
marry you, is sudden. I’ve honestly never 
thought of such a thing. Sometimes lately I 
wondered about love and marriage. Lots more, 
than I ever did before in my life possibly be¬ 
cause Louise is going to marry Tom and I’m 
with her so much that of course, I hear all her 
plans for the future. I’d give anything to be 
Louise. She says she never for a moment 
thought of anyone else after the first time she 
saw Tom, and goodness knows that was 
years ago!” 

“ I’ve never thought of anyone else but 
you since I first met you!” Roger broke in al¬ 
most indignantly, as though he didn’t want 
Louise to walk away with all the laurels 
of faithfulness. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 323 


“ Never once?” Winona asked more out of 
curiosity than because she doubted his word. 
It seemed then, that men felt the same way as 
Louise and Helen did about Tom and Charles. 
Winona’s feelings in the matter were really 
those of someone who watched, rather than 
those of an actual participant. But Roger’s 
next words brought her back again to the fact 
that after all it was her own proposal and she 
had to decide something about it. 

“Will you marry me, Winnie?” Roger 
asked again, ignoring her question as though 
it were silly of her to think even for a minute 
that he could have ever been interested in any¬ 
one else. 

“I don’t know!” Winona said truthfully. 
“ Honestly I don’t know whether I love you 
even, I’ll have to think it over before I can give 
you any answer to that question.” 

“ But Winnie dear,” Roger persisted, “ I 
should think you’d know if you loved me. Why 
that’s an easy thing to know! Do you like to 
be with me? Do you feel glad when I come 
into the room? Were you glad to get my 
Marconigram and to hear I was on my way 
to America?” 

Winona looked at him with her brows knit 
in perplexity. She could truthfully answer 
“yes” to all of these questions. Was being 


SU WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


able to answer “yes ” being in love? It all 
sounded so easy, perhaps after all it wasn’t 
like the story book kind she had always thrilled 
to read about. Was it only being glad that 
Tom was coming into the room that made 
Louise’s eyes light up so? Was it only being 
glad that Charles was coming home that made 
Helen spend hours over the stove cooking 
things that she knew he particularly liked? 
Winona was always fair. If the answer 
“ yes ” to these questions were the things that 
went to make up love, well, she had felt them 
all for Roger, so perhaps she loved him. She 
tried to explain it all to him, but he was so de¬ 
lighted with her first rather faint “ yes ” that 
he paid no attention to her reasoning. 

And so when they went into the tiny hall of 
the Little Crooked House and Roger stood 
holding her hand for a minute before she turned 
to go up stairs, she found that he had taken 
her tremulous “ yes ” for a final answer and 
that his spirits were consequently on tiptoe 
from happiness. He was just about to turn to 
go out of the front door, after having bade her 
goodnight and promising that he would call 
for her the next afternoon at the Garnett 
House and take her to tea at a new delightful 
place he had discovered, when they both paused 
to listen, for the sound of voices came from the 


WINONA’S DREAMS,COME TRUE 3 25 

living room, where the heavy velvet curtains 
which hung across the doorway, had shut out 
any reflection of light. Winona held up her 
finger for silence and they stood motionless. 
It was Sonia’s voice, raised to an even higher 
pitch than usual, which came to them first. And 
then Winona turned and looked at Roger in 
surprise, for the voice that answered Sonia’s 
was Billy Lee’s. 

“ Whatever are they doing up at this time 
of night?” Winona said with a slight frown. 
She felt more or less responsible for the 
Russian girl and she now felt decidedly cross at 
Billy for staying so late. He ought to have 
known better, even if Sonia didn’t. 

She walked across the hallway and drew a- 
side the heavy curtain. Billy and Sonia were 
sitting on Helen’s and Charles’ antique divan, 
which stood before the fire. As she came into 
the room, they both turned and saw her. 
Roger was close behind and now Billy who had 
stood up as soon as he saw it was Winona, came 
forward and greeted them both. 

“ I didn’t realize it was so late,” Billy said, 
pulling out his watch and glancing at the time. 
“ I must apologize to you, Sonia, for staying 
so late.” 

“ Apologize?” Sonia said in her quick ex¬ 
cited way, making a rather pretty gesture with 


326 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

her hands. “ And why should you apologize for 
making yourself so amusing that I forget 

the time?” 

Billy flushed and turned to Winona, but 
she turned away and walked over to the other 
side of the room without giving him any sign 
that he was forgiven. But Roger, who was 
so happy that he couldn’t bear to see anyone 
else feeling badly even for a minute, followed 
Winona and said something to her in a 
low voice. 

She shook her head in answer but as he 
turned and went back to where Sonia still sat 
on the divan and Billy stood self-consciously 
before her, she raised her hand as though to 
call him back and then repenting her action, 
turned and looked out the window as she had 
done the night when she had thought that 
Florence was going to announce her engage¬ 
ment to Billy Lee, that never to be forgotten 
evening when Winona had tried to play the 
part of a flapper. 

She could hear Roger’s voice, rising and 
falling, as he told the others of Winona’s and 
his engagement. Suddenly, Winona wanted 
to run over to them and tell them it wasn’t 
absolutely true. She had told Roger she 
thought she loved him, but oh, did she love him 
enough to leave the Little Crooked House and 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 327 


Tom and Louise and the others? She didn’t 
know! She truthfully didn’t know! 

Sonia went over first to where Winnie 
stood by the window. She held out her hand 
and murmured a few low words about 
happiness. But there was none of the 
enthusiasm that Winnie had expected the 
Russian girl to show. Her good wishes were 
merely conventional. Billy however, came 
over and took both her hands and held them 
very tightly. 

“ I wish you all happiness,” he said and 
there was a husky note in his voice as he said it. 
“ My wishes are not idle ones,” he continued. 
“ You must know that they are sincere. I am 
so fond of you both, I know that you can make 
each other happy.” 

Winona found herself fighting the most 
awful impulse to put her head down on the 
table and cry and let Billy comfort her with 
brotherly pats on her back. She wanted to tell 
him all about it and ask his advice, and then 
she realized that she couldn’t do that. She 
looked at him instead and smiled and thanked 
him, and in another minute he was gone. Roger 
too, went with him, and left Sonia and 
Winnie alone. 

“ Tell me, do you love this English 
baronet?” Sonia asked in her brusque way. 


328 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


There was a note in Sonia’s voice that made 
Winnie answer her shortly. 

“Yes” she said, and added, “Why do 
you ask?” 

Sonia turned away with a slight lifting of 
her shoulders, and made no answer. She 
walked to the doorway and turned, waiting 
for Winona who had stayed behind to put 
out the light. They went up stairs together. 

As she went into Louise’s room as quietly 
as she could, she couldn’t help recalling the 
night when Louise had left Tom down at the 
boat-dock and had run all the way home with 
the news of her engagement to Tom. How 
happy she had been, Winona tried to analyse 
her feelings now in regard to her engagement 
to Roger, but somehow the memory of Billy’s 
face and voice had a way of mixing itself up 
with Roger’s and suddenly she sat straight up 
in her narrow bed in the darkness, for the 
thought which had come to her and had 
startled her into her upright position was that 
she was in love with Billy! Head over heels, 
horribly in love, exactly as Louise and Helen 
were! And what had made her realize it was 
that she had unconsciously been putting Billy 
in Roger’s place all evening, and it was only 
until she had laid down in the friendly dark¬ 
ness and gone over her thoughts and feelings 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 329 


truthfully, that she had realized this to be so! 
And with the first happiness of knowing that 
at last she knew the truth and had found her 
dream, there came the dreadful thought of how 
much it was going to hurt Roger and how she 
would break her engagement with him. Turn 
whichever way she might, she seemed unable 
to find a way out. She was sure of two things, 
first that she loved Billy, second that she 
could never marry Roger. Things having 
assumed their right proportions she knew now 
that she must have always loved Billy. It was 
Billy who had been her dream all the time. 
She realized this now. Oh, why couldn’t it 
have been Billy who had proposed to her that 
evening? Or did things have to work out the 
way they had so that she could realize she loved 
him and not Roger? And then because life 
suddenly seemed so hard, she began to cry softly 
to herself, burying her head into her pillow to 
smother the sobs. But Louise heard her. She 
came running over to Winnie’s bed and soon 
had her arms around her friend and was beg¬ 
ging her to tell her all. Between her sobs 
which she tried hard to control, Winnie poured 
out the story of that evening. Louise listened 
patiently, without asking any questions, until 
the end, then she said, still holding Winona 


330 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


very tightly and rocking her back and forth as 
though she were a baby: 

“ Winnie dear, there is nothing to do but 
tell Roger tomorrow when he calls for you at 
the Garnett House. I’ve thought I’ve known 
for a long time that you and Billy were in love 
with each other but I think Billy always 
thought you were half in love with Roger. I 
think that was why he didn’t seem upset to¬ 
night when Roger announced your engage¬ 
ment. I guess he’d been thinking about it a 
lot and was rather prepared for it and I think 
that was why he didn’t tell you he loved you 
himself. But why did Roger announce your 
engagement tonight? I think it was rather 
silly of him, unless he was afraid you might 
change your mind overnight if he didn’t” 

“What shall I do?” Winona asked pite¬ 
ously. “ I’ll have to tell Roger I don’t love 
him, that is going to be terribly hard, but I 
can’t tell Billy I love him, no matter 
what happens.” 

“ We’ll find some way,” Louise said con¬ 
solingly, and then held up her finger for 
silence. Very distinctly they heard outside 
the door, a board creaking. Louise ran over 
and threw the door wide open. Sonia, in a 
dressing gown and slippers stood outside. It 
was easy to see that she had been listening, but 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 331 

9 

just how much she had heard neither of the 
girls could tell. 

“ Sonia, what are you doing?” Louise asked 
in a scornful voice. 

Sonia’s dark eyes flashed fire, she was al¬ 
ways jealous of Louise because of Winona’s 
evident fondness for her, and now she turned 
on her, all her acquired poise leaving her. 

“ I have been listening,” she said hotly, 
“ Listening with my ear to the door, if you 
would know. I have heard only that which I 
have known for a long time. Winona loves 
Billy Lee. She does not love the Englishman.” 

She turned and went across to her own 
room, slamming the door behind her. Louise 

went back to Winona. 

Roger didn’t call for Winona the next day 

at the Garnett House. Instead a note came 
from him saying that he couldn t see her that 
afternoon but would go up later to the little 
Crooked House and meet her there. She was 
relieved, for that meant the evil moment of 
breaking her engagement could be postponed. 
Louise and she went home together on the top 
of a bus, which took them much longer but 
gave them more time to plan what had to 

be done. 

But plans of mice and men often come to 


3S2 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


naught, and the girls found this to be the case 
with their carefully laid ones. 

Roger came that evening and the other 
occupants of the living room, after staying a 
little while, tactfully left Winnie and him a- 
lone. They were sitting side by side on the 
divan when Roger leaned across and took one 
of Winnie’s hands. It happened to be her left 
one and she thought the moment had come 
when he was going to give her a ring; she knew 
that she must stop him before he did this. But 
his first words made her sit up and listen, 
hardly able to believe her ears. 

“ Winnie,” he said gently, “ I have been 
thinking things over since last night, and I 
have come to the conclusion that I was rather 
hasty. I am afraid I took advantage of you 
and practically bullied you into saying you 
loved me. And I can’t remember you saying in 
actual words that you would marry me,” he 
added half whimsically. “ I took a great deal 
for granted. Lots more than I had any busi¬ 
ness to. I’m sorry, so I’ve come to tell you 
tonight that our engagement is off, until per¬ 
haps you want to tell me yourself that you are 
ready to marry me.” 

At first the relief was so great that Winnie 
couldn’t find anything to say. Roger himself 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 333 

was making things so easy for her. Then im¬ 
pulsively she held out her hand. 

“ Roger,” she said gently, “I’m afraid you 
are right. I think we were both rather carried 
away last night. It is very generous of you 
to release me, and I shall never forget 
your kindness.” 

“ Then there isn’t any hope?” Roger said 
in an odd voice. “ Oh, I had rather hoped that 
she had been mistaken,” he added under his 
breath as if he was thinking aloud. 

“ Who had been mistaken?” Winnie asked 
sharply. Suddenly it came to her, perhaps 
Louise out of the goodness of her heart had 
gone to Roger and told him everything. But 
Louise never betrayed confidences and Winnie 
had begged her not to tell anyone of her last 
night’s crying spell. 

Roger flushed, as though he was ashamed of 

being caught up that way. 

“ I was only thinking aloud,” he said rather 
shamefacedly, and then trying to change the 
subject, he said: 

“We won’t let this hurt our friendship, 
will we Winnie?” and put out a friendly hand. 

Winona took it gratefully and shook her 
head. She could not have spoken then for she 
wanted to cry. Roger was being so kind and 
considerate. But looking back on her friend- 


334 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


ship with Roger, she could never recall a time 
when he had been anything but kind and 
considerate. Kind and considerate and very, 
very lovable. 

And then Roger took her hand and looking 
deep into her eyes asked her again: 

“ You are sure, Winnie, that you never, 
never could many me?” 

And Winona looking back at him and 
knowing that the kindest thing to do was to 
make one final decision, a decision which would 
hold no false hope for him, answered gently 
but firmly: 

“ I’m sure, Roger, dear.” 

Billy Lee was the only one who went down 
to see Roger off this time, for Roger chose a 
time when he was sure the girls would be busy. 
No one knew what passed between the two 
boys, but for a week or so after Roger left, 
Billy was very silent and inclined to keep to 
himself. It was fully a month later when 
Billy, coming upon Winona suddenly, sitting 
on the floor before the fire in the living room, all 
alone, went over and dropped down on the 
rug next to her. She looked shyly across at 
him, as he sat silently, after their first greeting, 
and studied his profile against the dancing 
flames. He turned suddenly, and perhaps it 
was what he saw in Winona’s eyes which made 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 335 

him lift her hand, which was lying idly on the 
rug between them, and press it to his lips. For 
he had tinned so suddenly that she had not had 
time to let the curtain drop behind her eyes 
which covered the love she had for him in her 
heart. In that minute he had been able to see 
deep down into the deepest part of her heart. 

“ Darling,” he said huskily, “ I’ve loved you 
forever, it seems.” 

Winnie didn’t think that any answer was 
needed or that their conversation had to be 
carried on any farther. She simply dropped 
her head down on his shoulder, where she let it 
lie comfortably and knowing that it had found 
its right home at last. 

A year later Camp Karonya had two more 
weddings. Winona and Billy and Louise 
and Tom. 

People came from all over, and the little 
church wasn’t large enough to hold everyone, 
so receptions were held at both houses the 
brides and grooms being passed around like 
Best Sellers, as Louise laughingly said. 

Florence was Winona’s bridesmaid, and 
Andrew of the dimples was one of the ushers 
along with three other friends of Billy’s. Mrs. 
Lee of course came North for the wedding, 
and Nataly came too. bringing her million¬ 
aire husband. 


336 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Helen and Charles with their young 
daughter, Helen Grace, Jr., were made quite 
as much fuss over as the brides and grooms 
themselves for they had presented the Camp 
Fire Circle with its first junior member of the 
Camp Fire. 

Marie Hunter and Edith Hillis and 
Adelaide Hughes had decided to take over the 
Little Crooked House. Winona and Billy 
were to travel for a little while, and then later 
were to live part of the time in the South. Tom 
and Louise were taking an apartment farther 
down town, Tom having been made Night 
City Editor of his paper. Helen and Charles 
were planning to buy a small house in some 
suburb of New York where Helen Grace, 
Jr., would be able to grow up properly, 
they declared. 

As they went up together to change to 
their traveling dresses Louise whispered to 
Winnie that she had something special to 
tell her. 

In the privacy of Winnie’s room where they 
were both dressing, Louise told Winona that 
it was Sonia who had been responsible for the 
whole thing. 

“ She heard you crying that night and came 
out of her room and deliberately listened at the 
door and heard you telling me all. She called 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 337 

Roger up the next morning at his hotel and 
went down and saw him, after making an 
appointment with him. He promised to re¬ 
lease you, which he did. Then the day Billy 
went down to see him off, he told Billy about 
it and what Sonia had said. So you see I have 
been wrong about Sonia all along, and I feel 
I’ll never be able to make it up to her.” 

As she finished speaking their came a loud 
knock on the door and at Winnie’s bid to come 
in, Sonia opened the door and then coming in 
closed it softly behind her. 

“ I wanted to see you for the last time,” 
she said going over to Winnie and looking at 
her intently. “ Are you happy little friend? ” 
she asked almost wistfully. 

“ So happy! Thanks to you, Sonia dear,” 
Winona cried, throwing her arms impulsively 
round the Russian girl’s neck. 

Sonia frowned. 

“ Thanks to me?” she asked almost 
crossly, and then added with a hasty glance at 
Louise. “ Who has been telling tales? ” 

“ I have,” Louise said stoutly, coming over 
and taking Sonia’s hand. “ I told Winona 
what Billy Lee told me only yesterday. How 
you simply took things into your own hands 
and straightened them out for Winnie.” 

“ It is nothing,” Sonia said, turning away. 


22 


338 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 

“ It was only what I should have done. 
Winona has been the one good friend I have 
ever had. She had remained my friend 
through everything. You think I have no 
love nor gratitude in my heart?” she cried 
almost fiercely. “ I would die for Winona if it 
would save her pain in any way.” 

Winona couldn’t help looking and feeling 
embarrassed at this vehement outburst, but 
she said gently to the Russian girl, patting the 
hand which she still held tightly. 

“ I shall always consider you one of my 
best friends, Sonia. Only a true friend could 
have done what you did for me. I thank you 
from the bottom of my heart for you have 
made me the happiest girl in the world.” 

“ Not quite the happiest,” Louise said 
laughingly. “ Remember you still have Helen 
and me to contend with. We both consider that 
we have a perfect right to that title ourselves.” 

“ The happiest! ” Winnie said firmly. “ The 
very happiest, whatever you and Helen may 
say, for you see neither one of you have Billy 
have you?” 

“ No, we haven’t Billy,” Louise admitted 
but added, “We have better at home!” 

The door flew open just then and Florence 
came in. 

“ Hurry up,” she cried, and then seeing 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 339 


that there was lots of time as neither of the 
girls were nearly ready yet, she sat down on the 
foot of the bed and looked at them both 
critically. 

Suddenly she said: 

“ I have something to tell you. Andrew 
just proposed to me now, downstairs. I’m 
the happiest girl in the world!” 

She didn’t know why Louise and Winnie 
and Sonia all looked at one another and burst 
out laughing. She was inclined to be hurt and 
angry at first, then Winona ran over and threw 
her arms about her. 

“I’m so glad, dear,” she cried and Louise 
and Sonia came over too and Florence forgot 
to be angry as she told them all about it. 

“ We’ll be married when I’m twenty-one,” 
she finished up. 

Another knock came at the door just then, 
and Mrs. Whitney came in next. Fat little 
Matilda peeked round her mother’s skirt and 
slipped in too. 

“ You are all like the six sillies,” Mrs. 
Whitney said laughingly. “ We’ve sent every¬ 
one up to tell you to come down and they for¬ 
get to come down themselves.” 

“We’ll hurry!” Louise cried dashing a- 
round and slipping into her pretty traveling 
suit which Sonia helped her to fasten. 


340 WINONA S DREAMS COME TRUE 


Finally they were dressed and as they came 
down the stairs someone cried: 

“You forgot to throw your bride’s 
bouquets.” 

“ So we did,” Winnie cried, and Florence 
flew back to the room to get them. 

Louise w^as the first to throw hers and a 
pretty girl, who was John Van Horne’s fiancee, 
and who had come to the weddings with John 
and his father and her aunt, caught it. 

Winona looked down on the sea of laughing 
women’s and girl’s faces below her. She then 
closed her eyes and threw her bouquet as far 
as she could. When she opened her eyes again, 
she found that Miss Latimer had caught the 
flowers and was now holding them and blush¬ 
ing as prettily as a girl, as the others gathered 
around her. 

There had only been one slight thing in the 
day that had kept it from being perfectly 
happy. No word of any kind had come from 
Roger. Winnie had hoped that he would have 
sent some word of some kind. And then, just 
as they were going out to the waiting auto¬ 
mobiles, they saw a taxi turn the corner, com¬ 
ing at a dreadful pace. 

Quite before it stopped completely the door 
opened and Roger jumped out. He ran for¬ 
ward and begged them to wait a minute then 


*' * 



WINONA TITREW HER BOUQUET AS FAR A3 SHE COULD 














WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 341 

dashed back and helped his mother and one of 
his sisters out of the taxi. Then a third foot 
was seen on the step and out came a girl. She 
was very pretty, fresh and dainty colored as 
English girls always are. Roger introduced 
them all around and the pretty girl was his 
second cousin, it seemed. 

“ I was so afraid we wouldn’t get here in 
time,” Roger said, in a low voice to Winnie, as 
he held her hand for the last time in farewell 
“ I wanted you to know how much I wish 
your happiness, though I honestly don’t see 
how you can help being the happiest girl in the 
world with old Billy, he is such a brick.” 

“ I don’t see how I can help being, either,” 
she laughingly answered, and added: “ But 
you’ll have to ask Louise and Helen about 
that. They dispute the title with me, each de¬ 
claring they alone are the happiest.” 

“ I wouldn’t worry about that,” Roger 
said, smiling at her bright eyes and happy face. 

His little cousin called him just then and 
he turned to answer her. And as she watched 
him, Winona knew that she had nothing to 
worry about as far as he was concerned, 

any more. 

* Billy came down the steps of the house just 
then and helped her into the car, then went in 


342 WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 


and climbed into the driver’s seat. Tom and 
Louise were in their car behind. Winona took 
one last look at her family and friends gathered 
together on the porch and the front lawn to 
watch them depart. 

She waved to them for the last time, then 
when they reached the corner and the house 
and people were out of sight, she turned an 
April face up to Billy. 

“ Billy,” she said, looking up lovingly into 
his face, “Was there ever such a happy girl in 
the world?” 

“ I don’t know about girls,” Billy said, 
looking down at her affectionately, “ But I 
do know there never was a happier man.” 

“ And we’ll have them all down South for 
Christmas, as we have always planned,” 
Winona said a little while later, and she gave 
the grubby little bunch of wild-flowers, which 
had been contributed by her library children 
as a parting offering, a tender little pat of 
perfect contentment. 

“ And how about your dreams?” Billy said 
teasingly. “ Do you think you’ve found your 
new one?” 

“ It is such a big one, I am afraid I’ll not 
always know just what to do with it,” Winona 
said, half laughingly, half seriously. 


WINONA’S DREAMS COME TRUE 34$ 

At a cross-roads, Billy slowed down and 
waited for the car containing Tom and Louise 
to come up to them. 

“ We part here,” Billy said, pointing to one 
road which led North and the other South. 

“ Good-bye, good-bye,” the girls called to 
each other, and then the boys turned their 
machines and each car went its own road, and 
each car contained a boy and a girl who were 
sure they were the happiest people in the world. 























- 





































































































* 

























